VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, is pleased to host a Brown Bag Gallery Tour for the museum's current exhibition Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 4. The tour is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided. Blaffer Gallery is located in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Houston's central campus.

The informal, guided talk will be led by Dr. Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, director of Petroleum Geoscience Programs in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at the University of Houston. Texas Oil features informational exhibits created by the Center for Land Use Interpretation, a research organization based in Culver City, Calif., involved in exploring and understanding land and landscape issues. The show at Blaffer examines the relationship between the oil industry and the Texas landscape through images, maps and aerial video and photography.

Van Nieuwenhuise will provide an insider's perspective of the Blaffer exhibition by a petroleum geologist who has worked within the oil industry. His talk will include reflections on the sheer size of the oil industry, focusing on its corporate face, its geoscientists' work and its impact on the terrain, as well as the translation of that size into fulfillment of society's energy needs.

"Landscapes are usually the result of the underlying geology and the natural weathering processes on the surface. However, in the examples of landscapes presented by the CLUI, the surfaces are altered by human activity rather than natural processes," stated Van Nieuwenhuise. "I find the CLUI's exhibition fascinating because it reveals something about humanity and not just about the earth," he added.

Van Nieuwenhuise, who also teaches Petroleum Geology, Reservoir Characterization, and other related geoscience and engineering courses at UH, earned his bachelor's degree and doctorate in geology from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., and his master's degree from the University of Houston.

Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry is on view at the museum through March 29. It runs concurrently with Electric Mud, an exhibition which features six California-based artists whose work confounds the boundaries between ceramics and painting.

Pictured:  Various vertical markers announcing the political, industrial, and historical significance of the land.  Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.