VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Galveston Arts Center is pleased to present Ann Wood: Garnish, a site-specific installation by Galveston-based artist Ann Wood. The exhibition will open during the April 30th ArtWalk  and remain on view through June 5, 2011. Curator Clint Willour will lead a gallery talk with the artist at 6:30 pm during ArtWalk.

Garnish will explore issues of attraction and repulsion, beauty and decay, seduction and perversion. Wood uses a variety of media in her installations including yarn pom poms, faux flora and fauna, puffy paint, rubber and sequins. Rich, cake-frosting colors entice the visitor to enter an environment that at the outset appears absurdly saccharine and serene. Closer inspection often reveals that not all is as cheerful or tranquil as expected, as black crows dissolve into puddles of inky goo, tree branches ooze, and fallen cherry blossoms and fuzz balls blanket the ground.

Statements on environmental policy and man versus nature are not what the artist intends, although the processes of growth and decay are forefront in her work. Taking a cue from traditional Dutch and Spanish still-life (or “dead nature”) paintings, Wood precisely arranges each tableau to include elements of not only both the living and the dead, but the processes in between.

“Nature and the food chain have always informed my work, as has the idea of attraction/repulsion and traditional beauty,” writes Wood. “However, the idea of being lured into a dangerous situation has become a new conceptual obsession of mine…. [I’ve] started to look more closely at the natural cycle of growth and decay that occurs around me every day.”

The artist also alludes to this duality with the title “Garnish,” citing its meaning as adornment, decoration, or embellishment, but also its legal connotations of warning, the extortion of money or withholding of funds.

Ann Wood was born in Sacramento, California and raised in Eureka. Wood received a FBA in Art with an emphasis on painting from California State University at Chico. She earned an MFA in painting from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her work has been included in exhibitions at venues across Texas including the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art; Arthouse, and Women & Their Work, Austin; the Arlington Museum of Art; the University of Texas at San Antonio Art Gallery and San Antonio College Visual Arts Center Gallery. Recent one-person exhibitions of her work have been shown at Lawndale Art Center, Houston, and San Jacinto College South. The artist lives and works in Galveston.

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 exhibition 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.

Pictured Above:
Ann Wood
Hush (detail), 2011
Mixed media installation at San Jacinto College South Campus
Dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist

Pictured Below:
Ann Wood
Pollination Polka, 2010
Fuzz balls, foam, fake flowers, embroidery thread, wire, vinyl, fake bees, puffy paint
12 x 192 x 2 inches
Courtesy the artist