VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Galveston Arts Center is pleased to present Bert’s Red Book, featuring a new series of work by Houston-based artist Bert Long. The exhibition will open during the January 22nd ArtWalk and remain on view through March 6, 2011. Curator Clint Willour will lead a gallery talk with the artist at 6:30 pm during ArtWalk.

Released in 2009, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung’s The Red Book, has been described as the “most influential work in the history of psychology.” Created by the founder of analytical psychology and pioneer of dream analysis between 1914 and 1930, it was Jung’s record of what he described as his “inner images.”

Jung utilized his active imagination to create his images and text for the book. The Red Book became the source for artist Bert Long, who used his own dreams and visions to create a series of paintings and drawings in response to Jung’s work. Working in a style that has become his trademark, Long’s paintings are also sculptures, where canvas and frame are one and collage is part of the whole. These works are at once direct and mysterious, simple and complex, cheerful and brooding, bright and dark.

Curator Clint Willour writes in the exhibition catalogue, “Throughout these works Bert has explored his personal unconscious to delve into Jung’s conscious active imagination. He has responded to those ideas with his visionary reactions. In doing this he utilizes many of the ideas Jung brought to the world of psychology: archetype, persona, shadow, anima and animus, dream interpretation, personal typography and individuation.”

In Art (2010), Long combines acrylic paint with a plaster eye and frame embellished with the tools of his trade, tubes of paint, pencils, pens and brushes, recurring symbols from the artist’s visual lexicon. In Stumped (2010), a central canvas depicts the serpent from the biblical expulsion story, minus the apple or Adam and Eve. Embellished with a metal “welcome” sign and tree branch, the work is in response to Jung’s writing, “He gives you a small insignificant fruit which has fallen at his feet.”

In Soul (2010), Long responds to the notion of “the soul in the primitive sense” with boxes representing heaven and hell, a crown of thorns and images of eyes, tears, smiles, day, night, fire, and wind representing Universal Consciousness. The works in the exhibition characterize what the artist has described as only the beginning of a wonderful quest into his mind.

A native Texan, Long received a degree in adult education from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1972. In 1990 he was recognized as Texas Artist of the Year and was awarded the Rome Prize Fellowship. His work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including a one-person exhibition at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2006. Long currently lives and works in Houston.

Galveston Arts Center is operating in a temporary downtown gallery space—the site of the former Maceo’s Spice and Import Company located on the corner of Market and 25th Streets. The administrative offices are also at this location. The gallery and selections from GAC’s retail gallery, ArtWorks, are open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday by appointment only.

A flyer listing all ArtWalk participants with times and locations can be downloaded at www.contemporaryartgalveston.org.

SUPPORT AND SPONSORSHIP
Funding for GAC’s exhibition programs is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston Endowment, Inc., Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, The National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, the City of Galveston through the Hotel Occupancy Tax Fund, The Levin Family Foundation, and the generous support of the community, volunteers and an active membership. GAC’s Art for All Education Program is supported in part by the Harry S. and Isabel C. Cameron Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Alice Taylor Gray Foundation, Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund, and the Jr. League of Galveston County’s Community Assistance Fund.

Photo Captions:

Bert Long
Art, 2010
Acrylic on board with plaster eye, plaster frame, paint tubes, brushes, pens, pencils
33 1/2 x 38 x 5 inches
Courtesy the artist and HCG Gallery, Dallas

Bert Long
Stumped, 2010 (detail above, full image below)
Acrylic on canvas with frame of white pine, tree branch, metal sign
41 x 44 x 20 inches
Courtesy the artist and HCG Gallery, Dallas

Bert Long
Soul, 2010
Acrylic on canvas with frame of white pine, sycamore leaf, Mexican thorn branch
87 x 40 x 5 inches
Courtesy the artist and HCG Gallery, Dallas