Forty-one visual artists explore humor and the absurd through narrative art and writing
Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 5, 2007 – 7-9 PM
Free and open to the public.
The Bath House Cultural Center presents Funny Stories and Absurdity, an invitational exhibition of narrative art and texts that explore humor and illogicality. The exhibition will take place May 5-26, 2007 and will feature the artwork of forty-one artists from the Dallas/Fort Worth region.
Exhibition background:
Many artists have utilized images filled with humor and wit throughout history to convey a variety of messages. The artwork created by such artists serves as a means of expression that communicates and explores a diversity of themes while using comedy, humor, satire, sarcasm or downright absurdity. The nature of the artist’s message can be diverse – politics, social commentary, popular culture issues, personal reflection, etc. – but humor or absurdity remains constant, even when serious issues are being investigated.
Subscribing to this stylistic and creative method, forty-one artists were invited by the exhibition curator to create unique works of art and to write short stories that find humor in a multiplicity of real and fictitious scenarios. All the artists based their creations on one of the eight following “story themes":
1) defective umbrella
2) the cat that could fly
3) anti-hero little girl
4) young ladies and the fish
5) defying gravity
6) sleepwalking in the winter
7) the man who spoke to trees
8) magician boy.
The resulting exhibition includes fascinating imagery and captivating texts that are employed by all the artists as narrative tools to tell funny, whimsical, absurd and absolutely poignant stories.
Participating artists:
The artists participating in this exhibition are Elizabeth Amaro, Rita Barnard, Penelope Ann Bisbee, Kristine Byars, Ken Cancelosi, Gabriele Castañeda Pruitt, Chris Cole, Kim Corbet, Ray-Mel Cornelius, Dan Dudley, Lori Dudley, Merry Fuhrer, María Teresa García Pedroche, Bryan Gooding, Niloo Jalilvand, Juan J. Hernandez, Mirka Hokkanen, Ann Huey, Jeff Hukill, Cindy Kelley, Mark King, Evamaria Kutscheid, Jean McComas, Freddy McCoo, Julia McLain-Echols, Tina Medina, Elizabeth Mellot-Carreon, Sandra A. Moreno, Lupita Murillo-Tinnen, Sharon Neel-Bagley, Margaret Ratelle, Phil Roger, John Sealander, T. Stone, Jeanne Sturdevant, Chris Tinnen, Jose Vargas, Marilyn Waligore, Angilee Wilkerson, Kathy Windrow and Vladimir Zimakov.
Funny Stories and Absurdity was curated by Enrique Fernández Cervantes, Visual Arts Coordinator and Curator of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.
