Grackle Flock, Stone Mountain, California, 2008, oil, magazine collage, Prisma color on canvas, 35 x 53 inches That looks beautiful....Here some of the background story and information about the opening.
Joan Wich & Co. Gallery is pleased to introduce the work of Cheyanne Ramos in the exhibition, Lost Paradise, opening Friday, July 10, 2009 and presented in conjunction with ArtHouston.
Ramos, who recently earned her MFA from the University of Houston, presents here a body of paintings and collages that are, frankly, eerie. Often using actual events of a disastrous nature (Hurricane Ike's devastation of Galveston, for example) together with her own bizarre imaginings, Ramos draws from her extensive treasury of found photographs and clip-art to create worlds fallen or - even worse - worlds about to fall apart. Dramatic but certain doom looms as actual characters in these disaster works - a tornado, a hurricane, a volcano - while Ramos plays with time: whether the disaster has already struck, or is about to. In Future Prospects, old Galveston after-Ike has been refigured entirely into a city recognizable only by vaguely familiar buy disparate parts of the original buildings, yet all still lit by a disquieting orange light. In Sea of Sorbitol, two children play unsupervised on a dirty beach unaware of just how dirty that beach will be when the fuming volcano on the next atoll cranks up. In any and all cases, the world Ramos imagines has changed, or is about to, and there's not much we can do about it, pre- or post-disaster. Nature wins; we cope as we can, or don't, leaving what remains to the birds in Grackle Flock.
Of her own work, Ramos says, "They are amalgamations of real, perceived, and projected experiences built from the fragments of found and personal photographs, objects, memories, art history, and the natural environment. I fuse these unstable, divergent and often times conflicted sources into new fictions. Places appear as apparitions, distorted or idealized memories, fabrications, or projections. Together they conflate time - the present exists as the discomfort between a nostalgic past and a foreboding future." The results are inventive, haunting, and beautifully fascinating paintings.
A preview reception for the artist will be held Friday evening, July 10th from 6 - 8 pm. The gallery will be open on Saturday, July 11 from 11 am to 5 pm to celebrate ArtHouston, which with other participating galleries, will solicit contributions to benefit the reconstruction of Galveston Art Center.
Regular gallery hours are Tuesday thru Saturday 11 - 5.
This image brought me good memories of one of my favorite toys as a kid. I wish I still had these guys!
uhmmm....Houston gets a little weird like that sometimes. So many people endured a mid-day hot temperature to witness this ceremony and I could swear some of the folks were crying.
Photo of Paul Greco Helium, Embargo Haugoton Kansas, Mixed Media 
Photo of Chuck And George, Dont Loose Any Sleep, Oil On Wood 
Banner - 6'x4' 
Photo by Gabriella Nissen
Been drawing lots of boxers lately, for apparently no reason...
A movie adaptation of Neiman Gaiman's book "Coraline". Directed by Henry Selick (of "Nightmare before Christmas). Im so glad alot of effort and dedication was put into this adaptation of the lovely Gaiman's book. The 3d experience is really amazing and interacts perfectly with the story and images. Im still keeping my fingers crossed for a "Sandman" movie version, hopefully as successful as Coraline. 
