Show Preview | Texas Masters

Fredericksburg, TX
InSight Gallery, March 3-20

Mark Haworth, Rio Bravo Kaleidoscope, oil, 9 x 12.

This story was featured in the March 2017 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art  March 2017 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

March ushers in wildflower season in the Texas Hill Country, when the bluebonnets start to bloom across the region. As the historian Jack Maguire once wrote, “The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland.” So it’s rather symbolic that, as the state’s official flower blossoms in the surrounding hills, InSight Gallery tips its hat to some of the finest Texas painters working today. The gallery’s ninth annual Texas Masters show opens on Friday, March 3, with an artists’ reception at 6 p.m.

“Texas Masters is always a celebration of the art here in Texas,” says gallery co-owner Elizabeth Harris. “It’s one of our most popular art shows of the year.” The exhibit features over 40 new works by 22 of the gallery’s local artists. Among the acclaimed participants are Nancy Bush, Jill Carver, Jim Eppler, Mark Haworth, Francois Koch, Kyle Ma, Robert Pummill, and Lyuba Titovets. Charcoal and graphite artist Mary Ross Buchholz gives a demonstration on Saturday, March 4, at 1 p.m.

Participating artists all reside in the Lone Star State and produce traditional representational artwork, but that is perhaps the only common thread in the show, says Harris. Some are recognized for their landscapes, while others have garnered praise for their wildlife art, still lifes, or western-themed works. “Artists at this level have become known for something, and that’s what they do,” says Harris. “It’s our aim to hold a looking glass to the depth and breadth of works coming out of Texas. It’s not just western art.” The artists range in age from 16 to 86, and some originally hail from other parts of the world, adding to the group’s diversity.

“We like to scout out new talent for Texas Masters,” says Harris, who is excited to introduce collectors to up-and-coming painter Tyler Crow, this year’s guest artist. Crow, an Oklahoma native, was recently inducted into the Cowboy Artists of America, becoming its youngest member at age 27.

A celebration of Texas art wouldn’t be complete without representations of the iconic Texas longhorn, a subject Teresa Elliott frequently portrays. The environs around her studio in the Chihuahuan Desert inspired the oil VALLEY OF THE SUN, in which Elliott placed a stately bovine against a backdrop of rolling desert land. “My north window frames a deep valley where the cast shadows of the cedar trees become long as the day closes,” she says. “It’s not hard to imagine the Texas longhorn moving across these empty hills.”

Born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico, impressionist painter Gladys Roldan-de-Moras has called San Antonio home for nearly 30 years. Inspired by turn-of-the-century Spanish painters, the artist says her work often highlights the city’s Latino heritage. In AT THE LIENZO, Roldan-de-Moras portrays a ceremonial scene at the beginning of a charreada, or Mexican rodeo, during Fiesta San Antonio. The oil meticulously depicts an arena of spectators and more than a dozen escaramuzas, women horse riders in ruffled dresses and sombreros. “Gladys put well over a hundred figures in the piece,” says Harris. “There’s a tremendous amount of detail. It’s really a show stopper.” —Kim Agricola

contact information
830.997.9920
www.insightgallery.com

This story was featured in the March 2017 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art  March 2017 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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