An Exhibition of Paintings, Prints and Collages Spanning Two Cities
FEBRUARY 19 - APRIL 7, 2016
February 19, 2016 6 - 8 pm
Brief introduction by Julie Speed 6 pm
Click here for a 44 second UNDERTOAD TRALER:
Flatbed Press and Gallery in collaboration with Ruiz Healy Art are pleased to present Julie Speed: Undertoad, an exhibition of paintings, prints, and collages spanning two cities. The artist will be in attendance for both of the opening receptions, at Flatbed Press and Ruiz-Healy Art. A jointly published catalogue with essay by Lyle W. Williams, Curator of Prints and Drawings at The McNay Art Museum, will be available.
After dropping out of Rhode Island School of Design at age 19, Julie Speed spent her twenties moving around the U.S. and Canada working pick-up jobs (house painter, horse trainer, ad writer, farm worker etc.) until moving to Texas in 1978 where she settled down and taught herself to paint. She switches back and forth regularly between oil painting, printmaking, collage, gouache and drawing, often combining disciplines.
Utilizing her keen sense of the absurd, Speed ponders the big questions—the role of religion, isolation and longing, sexuality, sin and guilt—with a sly, sometimes dark, sense of humor and a steadfast refusal to offer the viewer any tidy resolutions. It is the emphatically open-ended and omnivorous nature of her work, combining anxiety, erotica, and violence with the subversive power of beauty that puts Speed in the vanguard of a return to figurative painting in contemporary art.
The question that arises time and time again with Speed's work is what does it all mean? There is a physical presence to the work that draws people in; these are not works meant to be seen from across the room but rather up close, not glanced at but stared at intently. The artist wants us to look and to think about meaning, about storytelling, but there are no hard and fast answers to be had. In the post-modern tradition, the audience is not told what to think or how to interpret. The audience determines meaning; and the meaning can be different for different viewers at different times.
Join us for an opening reception the evening of Friday, February 19, from 6 - 8pm.
UNDERTOAD