Upcoming Exhibition at UD

August 15th, 2011


I will be exhibiting these paintings at the University of Dallas Haggerty Gallery opening Sept. 6.

Spring and Painting

June 14th, 2011


I have been consistently working in the studio for about the past month to get ready for a show, Influence , opening July 15, 2011, at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center. I am always surprised at how much impact the changing seasons have on my sense of color. Of course, I am also back to serious gardening and I sit out in the garden and ponder the forms and the changes on a daily basis. It is my favorite meditation.

Here is what I recently wrote about this work:

My current body of work uses simple, sometimes awkward cloud forms as a reference to or metaphor for passing thoughts. In these paintings I have also used the form of a tomato cage as a structural element as a way to suggest a figure or animated subject that responds to the environment I place it in. The idea of structure in the natural environment and the interaction with and reaction to human impact in the natural world is a subject I have been thinking about for many years. It is interesting to me as someone who cares deeply about the environment, but also as a formal aspect of creating a painting to impose a linear, structural element into a painterly process.

Color Haikus

July 18th, 2010

Recent Painting

July 10th, 2010

My current body of work references passing thoughts, process, time. I am increasingly interested in “honesty” of materials – that they be just what they are, but at the same time have the power to evoke other things. I am open to the history of the creation of a thing being evident in the work or the influence of a found object or material that lends a sense of time to a piece. Materiality has a strong hold on the way I approach my work. The texture of paint, transparency of a type of paper or patina on a found object suggest the ways it might be used to express a physical sensation or emotional content.

As a student of meditation, I practice watching my mind as I also watch the ever changing events in nature while I tend my garden. I am influenced by pattern, repetition, variation, movement and organic growth. The idea of structure and containment are increasingly evident in my imagery as I find that I want to pare down aspects of the images to more essential components.

Very often, my working experience feels like a musical “call and response”. I have less and less anxiety about not knowing what the final answer is until I arrive there. I enjoy the problem solving and ritual of creative play. I am more focused on noticing and the experience of the work, itself. I want to be able to find the heart of the thing and describe it in simple, yet evocative ways. I want to find myself in the give and take of building and editing an object.

KERA’s Art and Seek

April 2nd, 2010

From the  KERA Art and Seek blog April 1, a post by Tina Aguilar of Brookhaven College School of the Arts:

While many have flocked to the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, the art scene down the highway is vibrant with the creative influence of Texas artist Benito Huerta, Associate Professor and Director/Curator of The Gallery at The University of Texas at Arlington. As an artist, Huerta’s imagery in his paintings and visual imprints cross boundaries. Through the use of textures, symbols in the imagination, geopolitical arena and daily culture, he offers variations of our human experiences and explores the very values that collectively bind us together.

I spoke with Huerta as well as with his colleague Marilyn Jolly – Associate Professor of Painting and curator of the current exhibition “Outside Influences: Michael Noland and Fred Stonehouse” – along with the two artists about their collecting and creativity.

Read the interviews and see images at the KERA Art and Seek blog

Upcoming Show at Bows and Arrows

March 20th, 2010

My exhibition “Spring” opens at Bows and Arrows on April 24. The reception will be from 6-9 pm.

Bows and Arrows is a great new shop on Lower Greenville Avenue in Dallas.  They showcase art, do beautiful flower arrangements, and feature quirky gifts and crafts.  See the recent FDluxe article about them here.

Bows and Arrows  •  1925 Greenville Avenue  •  Dallas, TX 75206  bowsandarrowsdeluxe.com

Outside Influences

March 20th, 2010

I have recently curated this exhibition at The Gallery at UTA, University of Texas at Arlington. The exhibition is a visual dialog about the influences between the paintings of contemporary artists, Michael Noland and Fred Stonehouse and their collections of outsider artists, flea market finds and other odd and wonderful objects. I feel it is a beautiful exhibition of the complex and varied ways the artistic impulse is expressed.

Creativity Test – Gallery 76102 in Ft. Worth

March 19th, 2010

Featuring the work of artists Marilyn Jolly and Maraya Lopez, Creativity Test examines the idea of Paint-by-Number art, with its strict adherence to a predetermined step-by-step process, and turns it on its head. The artists’ intent is an examination of the very essence of creativity and creative problem solving.

Exhibition: February 4-March 31, 2010, at Gallery 76102 – UT Arlington/Fort Worth Center


Photos by Garrett Broyles

Fahrenheit 180: A Group Encaustic Exhibition

March 19th, 2010

The Ann Street Gallery (Newburgh, New York) proudly presents a new exhibition, Fahrenheit 180: A Group Encaustic Exhibition. In this exhibition, fifteen contemporary artists from across the country and abroad explore the ancient tradition of encaustic painting. Work exhibited range from abstract designs to more complex figurative paintings. Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which coloured pigments are added and then applied to a variety of surfaces. Early examples of encaustic art date back to Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits 100-300 AD, and later in the 20th century, artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg embraced the medium. More recently, encaustic art has seen resurgence in popularity among contemporary artists as this event exemplifies. Exhibition runs through to Saturday, March 28.

This exhibit includes four of my plaster and encaustic sculptures from the “Flora Exotica” series.

7th Annual Hecho en Dallas juried exhibition

March 19th, 2010

The opening reception for the 7th Annual Hecho en Dallas juried exhibition at the Latino Cultural Center was Thursday, March 11. There were a record number of entries this year. The show was juried by sculptor Thomas Bustos, Mountain View College visual arts professor Cristina B. Medina and Gabrielle Castañeda Pruitt, owner of Plano’s 14th Street Gallery.