Performance Art Houston presents
Not Like the Other
A performance art event on Instagram
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[October 4, 2016] Houston, TX – Performance Art Houston is pleased to announce that this October, the organization will begin facilitating a series of curated performance art shows on Instagram. During each virtual exhibition, individual artists will take up residency in Performance Art Houston’s Instagram account and facilitate performances and gestures as their works within the shows. Every week, the account will pass hands to a new artist who will then begin with their performances. As the performances and interventions are digital and will show up in the audience’s social media feed, this new way of exhibiting will break down barriers between audience and artist, creating unique opportunities for interaction and engagement.
The first show of this series, Not Like the Other, will be curated by Houston artist and writer Brandon Zech. Drawing on the idea of otherness, Zech has assembled six artists who occupy a liminal role in their environment. Each artist does this differently: Megan Solis deals with aspects of social anxiety and hyperawareness; Evan L. McCarley challenges the traditional roles women play in society; Lauren Moya Ford studies the complications of communicating across borders; Eric Thayer draws on the community in which he lives; Iva Kinnaird questions the nature of what performance is; and Pierre Krause navigates what it means to be a human living in the world today. The second exhibition of the series will begin in mid-November and will be curated by Los Angeles’ performance artist, writer and curator Autumn Hays (www.autumnhays.com).
To see the exhibition, which opens on October 10, 2016 and runs through November 20, 2016, please follow @PerformanceArtHouston on Instagram.
About the Artists
Lauren Moya Ford is an artist, writer, and teacher based in Madrid, Spain. Honors include the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Art and the Frank Freed Travel Grant for research in Mexico City. She has participated in performances and exhibitions at the Mexic-Arte Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Hirsch Library, the Blaffer Art Museum, Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, the Menil Collection, and Rice University. She writes about contemporary art in Spain and Portugal on her blog, Vigo Expo.
Iva Kinnaird is a multimedia artist. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2014 and now lives in Houston. She has shown at galleryHomeland and Hello Project Gallery in Houston, and at 500X in Dallas. She is a recipient of a Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund grant from the Dallas Museum of Art, and has had residencies with Sojourn Montrose in Houston and Co-Lab Projects in Austin. Her work is currently on view at Texas Woman’s University in a two-person exhibition with Shelby David Meier, and she has an upcoming show at Art League Houston in January 2017.
Pierre Krause is a post-lol multimedia thing-maker living an anonymous life in the United States. Their conceptual whatever works have been exhibited locally as well as in New York, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan.
Evan L. McCarley is a performance artist, musician and photographer based in Houston. After studying Art History at University of North Texas in 2008, she moved back to Houston and immersed herself in the local music and arts community. She co-facilitated CounterCrawl from its second to sixth iteration, and performed with Continuum Performance Art from 2012 to 2015. McCarley was a member of the artist board and a lead volunteer for Lone Star Explosion International Performance Art Biennale in 2014, and is currently co-directing and co-curating Experimental Action Performance Art Festival. She also serves as special events coordinator for Zine Fest Houston. McCarley is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Houston-Downtown.
Megan Solis is a recent graduate of UTSA where she concentrated on painting and performance art with a strong conceptual practice. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across San Antonio at The Lullwood Group, Silkworm Gallery, and R Gallery, among others. In 2015, she participated in an artist residency at Arteles Creative Center in Haukijärvi, Finland, and in 2016, was an artist-in-residence at Hello Studio in San Antonio. Solis will exhibit in a three-person show at the UTSA Main Gallery in the summer of 2017 along with Louie Chavez and John Hernandez.
Eric Thayer is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Houston, Texas. He is a former Merit Fellowship award winner and Resident Artist at the Post Contemporary in Troy, New York and has lived and worked in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Recent exhibitions include Buy Low, Sell High at Florida State University’s Oglesby Gallery, SITE Houston, installed at the Silos on Sawyer, and ImageOHIO 2016 at the Shot Tower Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, among others. He is currently a Teaching Fellow at the University of Houston, working towards his Master of Fine Arts degree.
About the Curator
A practicing writer, artist, and curator, Brandon Zech graduated from the University of Houston in May 2015 with a BA in art history and a focus on interdisciplinary art. He has worked for a number of Houston arts organizations, has curated shows at The Printing Museum and 4411 Montrose, and has shown his own work and performance at Alabama Song, DiverseWorks, and the Houston Fringe Festival. He is currently the Assistant Editor of Glasstire, a publication that covers visual art across Texas.
About Performance Art Houston
Performance Art Houston (PAH) was founded by Julia Claire Wallace in 2016 in order to bring powerful performance art to Houston audiences and to cultivate and celebrate the Houston performance art scene. PAH is empowering artists and aiding them in their journeys of personal development and artistic advancement by offering valuable resources and opportunities that nurture artist’s growth as individuals and as artists. Other PAH projects include monthly performance art nights at Notsuoh and Experimental Action, an international performance art festival occurring in February 2017 (www.ExperimentalAction.com). For more information about Performance Art Houston’s events and opportunities, please follow PAH on Facebook at www.facebook.com/performancearthouston and visit www.performancearthouston.com.
[October 4, 2016] Houston, TX – Performance Art Houston is pleased to announce that this October, the organization will begin facilitating a series of curated performance art shows on Instagram. During each virtual exhibition, individual artists will take up residency in Performance Art Houston’s Instagram account and facilitate performances and gestures as their works within the shows. Every week, the account will pass hands to a new artist who will then begin with their performances. As the performances and interventions are digital and will show up in the audience’s social media feed, this new way of exhibiting will break down barriers between audience and artist, creating unique opportunities for interaction and engagement.
The first show of this series, Not Like the Other, will be curated by Houston artist and writer Brandon Zech. Drawing on the idea of otherness, Zech has assembled six artists who occupy a liminal role in their environment. Each artist does this differently: Megan Solis deals with aspects of social anxiety and hyperawareness; Evan L. McCarley challenges the traditional roles women play in society; Lauren Moya Ford studies the complications of communicating across borders; Eric Thayer draws on the community in which he lives; Iva Kinnaird questions the nature of what performance is; and Pierre Krause navigates what it means to be a human living in the world today. The second exhibition of the series will begin in mid-November and will be curated by Los Angeles’ performance artist, writer and curator Autumn Hays (www.autumnhays.com).
To see the exhibition, which opens on October 10, 2016 and runs through November 20, 2016, please follow @PerformanceArtHouston on Instagram.
About the Artists
Lauren Moya Ford is an artist, writer, and teacher based in Madrid, Spain. Honors include the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Art and the Frank Freed Travel Grant for research in Mexico City. She has participated in performances and exhibitions at the Mexic-Arte Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Hirsch Library, the Blaffer Art Museum, Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, the Menil Collection, and Rice University. She writes about contemporary art in Spain and Portugal on her blog, Vigo Expo.
Iva Kinnaird is a multimedia artist. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2014 and now lives in Houston. She has shown at galleryHomeland and Hello Project Gallery in Houston, and at 500X in Dallas. She is a recipient of a Clare Hart DeGolyer Memorial Fund grant from the Dallas Museum of Art, and has had residencies with Sojourn Montrose in Houston and Co-Lab Projects in Austin. Her work is currently on view at Texas Woman’s University in a two-person exhibition with Shelby David Meier, and she has an upcoming show at Art League Houston in January 2017.
Pierre Krause is a post-lol multimedia thing-maker living an anonymous life in the United States. Their conceptual whatever works have been exhibited locally as well as in New York, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan.
Evan L. McCarley is a performance artist, musician and photographer based in Houston. After studying Art History at University of North Texas in 2008, she moved back to Houston and immersed herself in the local music and arts community. She co-facilitated CounterCrawl from its second to sixth iteration, and performed with Continuum Performance Art from 2012 to 2015. McCarley was a member of the artist board and a lead volunteer for Lone Star Explosion International Performance Art Biennale in 2014, and is currently co-directing and co-curating Experimental Action Performance Art Festival. She also serves as special events coordinator for Zine Fest Houston. McCarley is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of Houston-Downtown.
Megan Solis is a recent graduate of UTSA where she concentrated on painting and performance art with a strong conceptual practice. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across San Antonio at The Lullwood Group, Silkworm Gallery, and R Gallery, among others. In 2015, she participated in an artist residency at Arteles Creative Center in Haukijärvi, Finland, and in 2016, was an artist-in-residence at Hello Studio in San Antonio. Solis will exhibit in a three-person show at the UTSA Main Gallery in the summer of 2017 along with Louie Chavez and John Hernandez.
Eric Thayer is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Houston, Texas. He is a former Merit Fellowship award winner and Resident Artist at the Post Contemporary in Troy, New York and has lived and worked in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Recent exhibitions include Buy Low, Sell High at Florida State University’s Oglesby Gallery, SITE Houston, installed at the Silos on Sawyer, and ImageOHIO 2016 at the Shot Tower Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, among others. He is currently a Teaching Fellow at the University of Houston, working towards his Master of Fine Arts degree.
About the Curator
A practicing writer, artist, and curator, Brandon Zech graduated from the University of Houston in May 2015 with a BA in art history and a focus on interdisciplinary art. He has worked for a number of Houston arts organizations, has curated shows at The Printing Museum and 4411 Montrose, and has shown his own work and performance at Alabama Song, DiverseWorks, and the Houston Fringe Festival. He is currently the Assistant Editor of Glasstire, a publication that covers visual art across Texas.
About Performance Art Houston
Performance Art Houston (PAH) was founded by Julia Claire Wallace in 2016 in order to bring powerful performance art to Houston audiences and to cultivate and celebrate the Houston performance art scene. PAH is empowering artists and aiding them in their journeys of personal development and artistic advancement by offering valuable resources and opportunities that nurture artist’s growth as individuals and as artists. Other PAH projects include monthly performance art nights at Notsuoh and Experimental Action, an international performance art festival occurring in February 2017 (www.ExperimentalAction.com). For more information about Performance Art Houston’s events and opportunities, please follow PAH on Facebook at www.facebook.com/performancearthouston and visit www.performancearthouston.com.
Cover Photo by Ronald Jones, Performance by Celestina B- Sizzle (www.flamingfemme.com)