UNDERCURRENT
A JURIED exhibition of contemporary art IN central TExas
May 29 - JUly 10, 2023
Contracommon is proud to present Undercurrent, a juried regional exhibition of artists working in any media within a 100 mile radius of our space. The exhibition will be on view in the gallery from May 29th through July 10th, 2023. Undercurrent will open in conjunction with our Summer Arts Festival on Saturday, June 3rd from 2 – 8pm. In addition, Contracommon will host a closing reception for the exhibition on Saturday, July 8th from 6 – 9pm.
Leading up to Undercurrent, Contracommon members invited prominent members of the local art community in Central Texas to serve as jurors for this exhibition: Ryan Runcie, Sarah Fox, Gabi Magaly, and Kevin Ivester. This jury reviewed over 100 applications from artists throughout the state, selecting ten participating artists whose works overlap in a number of interesting ways.
Common themes among those selected include dichotomies, metamorphosis, and vulnerability. These works resonate with subtle emotion, and offer a view of the artists’ identities, both through their subject matter and materials used. The next generation of Texas artists on view in this exhibition employ elements of collage, appropriating familiar iconography and materials to reflect on their lived experiences through surprising combinations of mixed media.
Participating artists include: Ashley Blazer, Via Boley, Seth Daulton, Jessica Gritton, Alexis Hunter, Jamal Hussain, Celeste Lindsey, Hayley Morrison, Shannon Purcell, and Alan Serna.
Ashley Blazer
Via Boley
Seth Daulton
Jessica Gritton
Alexis Hunter
Jamal Hussain
Celeste Lindsey
Hayley Morrison
Shannon Purcell
Alan Serna
Jury Panel
Gabi Magaly
Gabi Magaly is an emerging artist born in Bryan, Texas. Magaly received her BFA in photography at Sam Houston State University in 2015 and received her MFA in Visual Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2020. Magaly has exhibited in solo shows at Satellite Gallery, Huntsville, TX; The Brick, San Antonio, TX; Presa House Gallery, San Antonio, TX; Casa Lu, Mexico City. She also was recently awarded two CAMMIE awards from Blue Star Contemporary and Luminaria Contemporary Cultural Center during Contemporary Art Month 2020. She works predominantly in the medium of photography, but also employs other mediums like sculptural installation and embroidery. Magaly currently lives in San Antonio, Texas and works remotely at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona.
Kevin Ivester
Kevin Ivester is the Owner and Director of Ivester Contemporary, a contemporary fine art gallery located in Austin, TX. He was born in Topsfield, MA, received a BFA in Studio Arts in 2013 from Endicott College in Beverly, MA, and moved to Austin in 2015. Kevin has worked in many capacities within the "Arts" including galleries, auction houses, picture frame shops, art restoration companies, and art handling firms. He has served on the board of Art Austin since 2018, has helped produce multiple ongoing self-guided tours in Austin, and owns East Side Picture Framing, which is a custom picture frame shop in Austin, TX.
Ryan Runcie
Ryan Runcie is a bi-racial, first-generation American artist whose inspirations come from his study of philosophic beliefs and experiences that ultimately change how we value others and ourselves.
He graduated from Texas State University with his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2016. Runcie is a board member of Capitol View Arts, a committee advisor of Big Medium's Austin Studio Tour, and a project coordinator of the City of Austin's Art In Public Places program. He has created work for AustinFC, UT Austin, The City of San Marcos, Abbott Industries, Austin Energy, Capital Metro, to name a few, and many local non-profit organizations.
Sarah Fox
Sarah Fox’s multi-media narratives and characters are created from embodied female experience. Stories of life, loss, sex and love are told through corporeal hybrid creatures. The resulting collages, cyanotypes, and animations suggest a childlike fairytale but with an undercurrent of dark symbolism.
Her work has been shown throughout Texas, as well as internationally. In 2019 she was a recipient of a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant that allowed her to live and work at the Women’s Studio Workshop in NY with her son. She received an Individual Artist Grant from the City of San Antonio in 2021.
Fox lives and works in San Antonio, Texas with her 5-year old son. She teaches at Texas State University and runs the summer Nature of Art Camp for young artists at Confluence Park.