GOCA opens new exhibition, “Pleasure and Protest in Contemporary Figure Painting”
The Galleries of Contemporary Art at the Ent Center opened a new exhibit Thursday focused on renewed value of craft in current art.
The group exhibition, “Pleasure & Protest in Contemporary Figure Painting”, will feature work from five female artists, consisting of Jackie Gendel, Lovie Olivia, Yana Payusova, Alexis Pye and Keer Tanchak. The exhibit is traveling to Colorado Springs from Fort Worth, Texas, having originally been curated for The Art Galleries at Texas Christian University.
“I really want to try and bring our students into conversation with it, I want them to see this kind of work and be inspired by it,” said Sara-Jayne Parsons, the GOCA guest curator and director of The Art Galleries at TCU. “I’m excited for the students there. We’re kind of spreading the love a little bit.”
Each piece showcased in the exhibition was selected for exploring domestic craft and ornate handwork in relation to painting the figure. A variety of mediums will be on display, from watercolor, fresco-secco, wallpaper, clay and embroidery, and the pieces are constructed using pattern and repetition.
“They are all working in quite different ways. But the themes of their work really overlap, not just in terms of narrative scene, but also in terms of the materials that are used,” Parsons said.
The concept for the show came from looking at what students were working on at TCU, Parsons said. There, Parsons noted similarities among contemporary artists with the 1970s Pattern and Decoration Art Movement.
“This is a show that actually came out of a conversation with our painting professors here at Texas Christian University, and it was looking to see the kinds of work that their undergraduate students had been making,” she said.
“This is where we started to see the overlap. And the work that the students were doing was really much in step with some of the work that we were looking at in these artists.”
However, the artworks from the exhibition provide a fresh discourse from the 1970s movement, Parsons said.
“It was like looking at a historical art movement from the 1970s, but then realizing that there were contemporary artists who were kind of continuing that conversation decades later, but doing it in a really different way,” she said.
“They were kind of following on with some of the ideas in the 1970s, but they were doing it in a really new way that spoke to new audiences. And that also really importantly, positioned, certainly artists of color in that conversation.”
What: “Pleasure & Protest in Contemporary Figure Painting”
When: Exhibition runs through March 16
Where: Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery, 5225 N Nevada Ave.
Price: Free; 719-255-3504; gocadigital.org/exhibitions/pleasure-and-protest
“Woman in motion” by Yana Payusova.
“DS Sony” by Keer Tanchak, 2022.
“Leaving the Picture Repeat” by Jackie Gendel, 2023.
“Open Carry” by Lovie Olivia, 2017.
“Be Like a Vase and Stay Awhile” by Alexisn Pye.