November 3rd – December 9th 2023 exhibitions

BOX 13 ArtSpace is pleased to present four exhibitions opening November 3rd , 6 30PM – 9 30PM.
In our Front BOX, we have Venessa Monokian’s exhibition entitled “Competitive Nature” that takes on the topic of invasive species but truly with an innovative twist. She cuts, paints and hand manipulates photographs to that allows the images to obtain a strange and mysterious glow that spreads into the space itself. Then in our Back BOX gallery PrintHouston is pleased to announce Press Forward, a national student printmaking juried exhibition. This year’s show is juried by Melanie Yazzie, an artist and Professor of Printmaking at UC Boulder, will be our juror for this exhibition. Finally moving to our Window BOX, Dana Caldera creates a exhibition entitled  “Material World” is a site specific art installation created for the Window Box Gallery. The oversized collage artwork completely fills the wall of the gallery, like a hanging quilt, wallpaper, or indoor mural. The resulting piece is highly tactile and visually complex. “Material World” is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

These exhibitions continue through December 9, 2023. An Opening Reception will be held on Friday, November 3,  6 30PM – 9 30PM at BOX 13 ArtSpace, 6700 Harrisburg, Houston, TX 77011.

A special thank you to Houston Arts Alliance @houstonartsalliance the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs @houstonMOCA, The Brown Foundation & all who have helped to support our programming.

Competitive Nature | Venessa Monokian

Front Box

On a nature walk on a visit to my hometown of Miami, Florida, I found myself in what I can only describe as a magical fairy forest. Lush and green, the light streaming in to illuminate miles and miles of heart shaped vines. The vine enveloped every bush, palm, and even climbed to the tops of trees. What initially felt magical started to feel odd. I didn’t recognize this vine from my childhood, and it’s loving embrace seemed to be suffocating. I later learned that this was an invasive species called air potato vine (Dioscorea bulbifera). The reality is, the vine was choking everything in its path. This plant found its way, not just to South Florida, but also to my new home in southeastern Texas. Invasive species like this one are often cultivated because of their beauty. When misplaced, they kill the native plants and throw off a natural balance.

Standing in miles and miles of vines, I was overwhelmed by how this one plant has so harmed two cities I call home. To create this work, I cut away most of the photographs I took of the plants, so the vine and its victim are isolated. Colorizing the shadow areas of the image where the air potato vine is positioned, highlights it. I deliberately picked a neon pink color because the unnatural tone acts as an almost toxic visual marker.

The initial visual effect is awe and enchantment, similar to my own first reaction to the air potato. Then the work lures the viewer to think more deeply about their relationship to our ecosystems. It highlights the way human action to create beauty without forethought harms our familiar environments. It also brings to mind the ways we harm our bodies to meet beauty standards, and how human desire for convenience, comfort, and aesthetics have worsened climate change. But while it’s hard to imagine our individual impact on climate change, the idea of learning about, and responding to, invasive species as a way to support ecosystems is more manageable. This work guides people to engage visually with these overwhelming issues on a smaller scale.

The aim is to examine the fragility of our ecosystems and expose the irrevocable damage that one pretty plant can cause while also looking at the ways we are rooted in our homes through familiar landscapes

Venessa Monokian

Venessa Monokian was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She currently lives in Houston, Texas  and is a member at Box13 ArtSpace. Monokian received her MFA from Florida International University.  In 2011, she was featured in a WLRN documentary by Emmy winning filmmaker Andrew Hevia, Rising Tide A Story of Miami Artists.  Monokian has shown her work internationally including the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, Mac Fine Art in Fort Lauderdale, Academy of Fine Arts in Poland, Panal 361 Argentina and Mister Pink Galeria De Arte in Spain. This year she was part of a three person show at Sam Houston State University Art Gallery entitled Scarcity and Abundance as well as a solo exhibition at the Goldmark Cultural Center’s Norman Brown Gallery in Dallas Texas. Monokian ends this year with her show “Competitive Nature” at Box 13 ArtSpace.

Website monokian.com

Instagram @vmonokian

Press Forward | PrintHouston

Back Box

PrintHouston is pleased to announce Press Forward, a national student printmaking juried exhibition to be held in Houston, TX in the fall of 2023. The exhibition features exceptional works from current student printmakers from all across the United States. Press Forward showcases the future of American printmaking with young printmakers that explore the wide range of traditional and innovative printmaking processes. Original works of multiple printmaking media will be on display, including lithographs, screenprints, relief prints, intaglio, monoprints, letterpress, and more.

ORGANIZER PrintHouston is a Houston-based Non-Profit 501(c)(3) arts organization. Our mission is to promote traditional and non-traditional printmaking, encourage print collecting, and facilitate the professional growth of our members.

JUROR We are pleased to announce that Melanie Yazzie, an artist and Professor of Printmaking at UC Boulder, will be our juror for this exhibition.

Melanie Yazzie, an artist and Professor of Printmaking at UC Boulder, will be our juror for this exhibition. As a printmaker, painter, and sculptor, Melanie Yazzie’s work draws upon her rich Diné (Navajo) cultural heritage. Her work follows the Diné dictum “walk in beauty” literally, creating beauty and harmony. As an artist, she works to serve as an agent of change by encouraging others to learn about social, cultural, and political phenomena shaping the contemporary lives of Native peoples in the United States and beyond. Her work incorporates both personal experiences as well as the events and symbols from Dine culture. Her work is informed and shaped by personal experiences.

For more information about the exhibition and programs from PrintHouston please visit https //www.printmattershouston.org/

Follow us on Instagram https //www.instagram.com/printmatters/

Follow us on Facebook https //www.facebook.com/printmattershouston/

Material World  | Dana Caldera

Window box Box

I create contemporary abstracts made with found paper, found fabric, and handmade paper. Each work is a study of sentimentality and materiality. Sentimentally, I’m drawn to the nostalgia in the found objects. Materially, I consider both paper and fabric to be fibers, and these found fiber objects seem linked in the way that they carry our stories, record our lives, how they are impermanent, and in their physical properties.

As I work, I layer and combine the found fibers into a new collage form. The resulting piece is a physical stretching and remaking of the found material, which gives new energy to the discarded records of a life lived. Water, time, value, domestic labor, craft, and community are additional themes that run through the work.

“Material World” is a site specific art installation created for the Window Box Gallery. The oversized collage artwork completely fills the wall of the gallery, like a hanging quilt, wallpaper, or indoor mural. The resulting piece is highly tactile and visually complex. “Material World” is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Dana Caldera

Dana Caldera is a mixed-media visual artist, living and working in Houston, Texas. Her pieces combine found collage material, handmade paper, textiles, painting, and drawing into intricately layered compositions.

Caldera’s artwork has been selected for numerous juried shows in Texas and nationally. Her work has been included in group shows at The Holocaust Museum Houston and The Alexandria Museum of Art. In 2022, Caldera presented an installation of new fiber collage artwork at TANKSpace in Houston, TX, and was an artist-in-residence with The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s CAMHLAB. She was recently named a grant award winner from The Wendy Wagner Foundation and the City of Houston.

Website Danacaldera.com

Instagram @danacaldera