Originally from New York state and a graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Crafts in
Metalsmithing and Jewelry, Tara Conley lives and works in Houston, Texas.
Tara Conley works in fiber, steel, bronze and fiberglass, often mixing materials and processes in surprising ways. She
has an extraordinary knack for creating organic, yet original, shapes from man-made materials, adding a delightful
sense of humor and wonder to the mix.
Kathy Erteman’s ceramic pieces animate the walls with a grounded, quiet minimalism. Erteman draws inspiration for her clay-based work from the modernist architecture and design of the 20th century, and the clean lines of her ceramics reflect that. Textures that breathe with variety and a more organic sense of imperfection bring life to the simplicity of Erteman’s chosen forms. Here, the textures and rich color palettes of her surfaces find their inspiration in the abstract art of Josef Albers and Mark Rothko. Erteman was born in Santa Monica, California and received her BFA in Ceramics from California State University Long Beach. Her work has been exhibited internationally—from London to Taipei—and she is currently based in New York, where she continues to explore the possibilities of clay.
Christian Renonciat captures the ridges of cardboard and the folds of paper in exquisite sculptural detail. His wooden renderings of quotidian items such as envelopes transform these objects into striking studies in wood, surface, texture and light. Playing with illusion and the viewer’s sense of materials—how can wood crinkle just like paper? —Renonciat’s sculptures have a winking humor and quiet poetry to them. Renonciat was born in Paris in 1969 and received his degree from the Sorbonne before deciding to pursue a career as an artist. Since then he has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and Asia. He has exhibited with Gremillion & Co since 2006, and continues to live and work in France.
Renowned Texas artist Stephen Daly’s work is challenging and light-hearted in equal parts. Daly explores human communication and all its accompanying transformations and failures. He does this through a variety of mediums: sculpture, drawing, and sometimes a mixture of both. The human head, rendered minimalist and absurd, recurs throughout Daly’s sculptural works. His ink and watercolor works on paper draw on the whimsicality of Joan Miró and vibrant geometrical compositions of Kandinsky. A swirl of symbols, references, and patterns draw the viewer into an associative web. A note of sarcasm and a keen sense of humor cuts through the weightier themes of human psychology and sensory understanding that characterize Daly’s work. Daly received his BFA from San Jose State University, an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and taught at the University of Texas at Austin for more than two decades. A recipient of the prestigious Prix de Rome, his work has been exhibited internationally and found its way into museums and galleries across the United States. He continues
to live and work in Texas, refining the figurative aspect of his sculptural work as well as further exploring the medium
of drawing.
Received his B.A. from Bard College.. His sculpture takes form through a process of accretion; by incrementally altering the dimensions and angles of multiple layers of wood, he creates shapes that are at once mathematical and natural, curving and twisting like parabolas, spirals, or waves.
John Christensen’s sculptures are minimal in their lines, their forms often abstracted from shapes in the
natural world. Christensen works in varying mediums, including wood, steel, aluminum and cement. He describes his
sculpture as informed by the natural sciences, metaphysics, literature, and history. Born in New York City, John
Christensen received his BA from Harvard University and his MFA from the University of Texas. He currently lives and
works in Austin.
Emerging as a gifted sensory artist, Ender Martos provokes his viewers to consider the spectrum of the human experience, and invites those experiencing his art to find themselves on that spectrum. Born in the Andes of Venezuela, Martos now resides in Austin, Texas, where his art has been commissioned by world-shaping corporations. His powerful works demand self-reflection: What is passion vs obsession? Is the waking twilight of moving color the same as we witnessed emerging from our mothers’ wombs? How does one explore meaning and humanity in light, color, movement? His cerebral, three-dimensional works promise the invoking of curiosity, securing Martos as a rising star in the kinetic art field.
A California based sculptor, Jack Zajac is known for his work in bronze and marble. His abstract forms channel the sense of intuition, mystery, and the unconscious that are central to the Surrealist tradition, while his clean sculptural lines hold echoes of famed Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. Zajac's choice of subject matter often comes from the natural world—the curves of falling water, or the arch of a swan’s neck—and are often weighted with symbolic meaning, such as his series of skulls and horned goats. He studied art at Scripps College and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. Zajac is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. His work resides in numerous museum collections and has been featured in solo exhibitions and retrospectives across the country.
Stephen Adams received his BA and BFA from Rice University. He is a sculptor who utilizes glass in combination with "found" materials: wire, wood, etc. “Since there is this mathematical linkage to the concept of limitlessness, I wanted to use the Golden Rectangle consciously as a paradoxical or perhaps limiting factor in the evolution of a given piece.”
The work of sculptor Jeffrey Brosk is heavily influenced by the American West, a region whose mountains,
vistas, and flowing prairies have long been a rich source of spiritual and aesthetic inspiration for American artists. The
warm wooden tones and strong lines of Brosk’s pieces reflect his preoccupation with this vast and rugged landscape.
Brosk’s sculptures are a testament to a powerful harmony between artist and materials: organic forms and natural
wooden grain work in tandem with right angles and blocks of gold leaf. Brosk takes as his starting point salvaged
pieces of wood and stone, among other materials. He has a BA and BS from the University of Pennsylvania and a
Masters in Architecture from MIT. Though frequently found hiking and horseback riding in the mountains, he
currently lives and works in New York City.
