ARTDEPOT :: Feb 2008 :: Briggs & Hombre

Exhibition dates: February 1st-29th, 2008
Opening Reception: Friday, February 1st, 2008 from 6-9PM

Rift :: Alice Leora Briggs	Sea of Cortez :: Mel Hombre
Alice Leora Briggs Discount	Mel Hombre Sea of Cortez 19
Alice Leora Briggs Discount	Mel Hombre Sea of Cortez 20
Alice Leora Briggs Test Boy	Alice Leora Briggs Pieta
Alice Leora Briggs Test Boy	Alice Leora Briggs Resulto

The ART DEPOT features two exhibitions during the month of February: Rift by Alice Leora Briggs and Sea of Cortez by Mel Hombre. Both exhibitions will be available for viewing on as part of the First Friday Art Trail on February 1st from 6-9 PM. The exhibition will be available for viewing by appointment February 1st - February 29th, 2008. This event is free and open to the public.

Rift features sgraffito drawings and an architectural installation by Lubbock artist Alice Leora Briggs. Briggs’ investigations of the foibles of Western culture include drawings that will be published in "Dreamland", a book currently underway at University of Texas Press. Written by Charles Bowden, "Dreamland" probes the US-Mexico border, this strange geography and contemporary parable of human misfortune. Rather than glib indictments of political policy, moral corruption or economic fratricide, Briggs’ works of art explore contradictions, inconsistencies, and breaches, uncovering their echoes from the past in the present.

With knives, dental tools, fiberglass brushes and steel wool Briggs renders uneasy constellations. She succumbs to her penchant for historical photographs, the canons of western painting and drawing, as much as to her own experiences. Images from other times and places encroach on boundaries that differentiate what is contemporary, historical, sacred, profane, logical or senseless.

Briggs’ Cavern, is a mixed-media hexagonal structure that includes five panels with alternating lines of English and Braille translations of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. On the principal panel, a monochromatic drawing depicts in linear perspective a hallway flanked by a lattice work of casement windows.

Braille, a writing system based on units of six, is conventionally produced in relief. In this installation, however, it is a network of holes drilled through walls. The pattern of apertures can be read by the blind, but also provides a matrix for a sighted person's perception of space beyond the walls. It is an opportunity to look through language.

Born in Borger, Texas, Alice Leora Briggs, received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa. She has taught painting, drawing, and other media at several universities and art schools throughout the country including The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Iowa, and University of Arizona. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions including venues at the Missoula Museum of Arts (Montana), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), Salt Lake City Art Center (Utah), Cedar Rapids Art Museum (Iowa), New Mexico State University (Las Cruces), Utah State University (Logan), City Museum of Bratislava (Slovakia), Des Moines Art Center (Iowa) and de Young Museum (San Francisco).

The Art Depot is pleased to exhibit The Log from the Sea of Cortez: A Series of Twenty Paintings by artist Mel Hombre. Mel Hombre, a self-taught artist, moved to Lubbock from Arizona just three years ago. This new body of work evolved from Hombre’s rapport with John Steinbeck’s "The Log from the Sea of Cortez." Steinbeck’s account of events, animals, people, routes and villages documents a six week expedition in 1940 to collect marine specimens with biologist Ed Ricketts. Steinbeck describes daily life on and off the boat and unravels ecological relationships of assorted life forms, humans not excepted, that he and Ricketts encountered.

Like their search for marine life, Hombre’s modest paintings evolve from systems of disclosure. Anticipated images are altered by a process of excavation. Engraved grids imposed on layers of effaced paint suggest some cartographic references to obscure, unfamiliar places.

JPG Information::

Alice Leora Briggs_Resulto_12x 15 sgraffito drawing_2007on display at ARTDEPOT Feb1-29 2008

Alice Leora Briggs_Discount_60 x 40 sgraffito drawing_2007-on display at ARTDEPOT Feb1-29 2008

Alice Leora Briggs_Pieta_ 25 x 37 sgraffito drawing -2007-on display at ARTDEPOT Feb1-29 2008

Alice Leora Briggs-Test Boy_50x 25 sgraffito drawing with sepia ink and acrylic_2007-on display at ARTDEPOT Feb1-29 2008

Mel Hombre_ Sea of Cortez 20_Diptych_acrylic on Arches paper_10x14_2007- on display at ART DEPOT Feb 1-29 2008

Mel Hombre_ Sea of Cortez 19_Diptych_acrylic on Arches paper_10x14_2007- on display at ART DEPOT Feb 1-29 2008