[click pics for full image]

Drawings, zines, photography, graphic design, sculpture [click pics for full image]… a few samples of new work for the show at Satellite Studios on Friday.

Flex-Space at Pump Project’s Satellite Studios presents

New & Recent Works by Rachelle Díaz and Gerardo Arellano
Reception: 8pm-10pm, Friday, October 7 – one weekend only show!

Open Gallery Hours: 12-5pm, Saturday, October 8
1109 Shady Ln., Austin, Texas 78721

Two friends, one long overdue show. I have about an equal amount of wonderful art buddies I’ve met both through random interwebbing and slightly tipsy chattin’ at shows. But the internet folks stand out more so because they’ve put out the extra effort to find people in their locality via good ol’ fashioned sober Google/craigslist/Flickr searches. I first received an email from Gerardo 6-7 years ago, saying something to the effect of:

Hey, I’m a painter. I like your work. I’m new in Austin and looking to meet other painters.

Kind of out of the blue, non? Honestly, I wasn’t sure if it was legit, but I liked what I saw on his website. Months passed… I can’t remember when I actually met Gerardo in person, but I believe it was when I invited him to participate in Vision Riot 2, one of my solo forays into curating (credit to Ricardo Acevedo for the concept). Besides, who in the art world can recall the exact moment you met such-and-such person? It all blurs together.

Much like our work as artists blurs together: painting, photography, graphic design, hair/makeup/fashion styling, community outreach. Aesthetically, our work is both influenced by strong design skills, a love of bright colors, a sense of humor, and a certain studiousness about the world — visually, socially, spiritually — and what it all might mean, or not mean at all. Lighthearted and sincere.

Gerardo will be showing paintings from 2006 to present and a site-specific mural. I’ll have a new series of drawings up and will be debuting a self-published/bound zine, “Hippy Fit,” a personal photographic essay reconciling art, fashion and fitness.

To that effect, we plan to have a good time AND donate 20% of art sales to Casa Marinella, a local organization dedicated to assisting immigrant families. Although this is a one-weekend show, it’s not just gonna be another “hey-look-at-me-I’m-an-artist” East Austin kegger. We both genuinely care about helping people in our community, so friends and guests can not only pick up some great art at an affordable price, but also make a donation to those in need.

What is not awesome about that? Our good friend DJ Rocoroyo will be laying down the soundtrack and we’ll have all the usual refreshments at the reception on Friday night (special thanks to J. Haley and Pump Project Satellite), and possibly leftovers during open gallery hours on Saturday. Come celebrate with us.

Colorcube

Quite possibly one of the most challenging drawings I’ve ever done. The drawing bit itself is only about 4″ x 4″ but the unanticipated intricacies took about 6 months of various re-dos and psyching myself up that I could finish it.

Colored pencil on wood
Finished May 2010

*
Lite Brite RGB Colorspace [original gif]
Colored pencil on wood
Finished May 2010

Both part of the Staring at Screens series. Can’t believe it was exactly one year ago I first started this set!

*Relying on scans and Photobooth lately since I don’t have funds to purchase a new digital camera yet.

Ink, acrylic, and colored pencil on paper
April 2010

Many times I feel a need to take apart someone else’s art to figure out how it works (but not put it back together), just to satisfy my curiosity. These cloth studies were inspired by Pattie Lee Becker’s Ropes exhibit I saw at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art earlier this month. Her drawings brought me back several years ago to the memory of this dude who lived two apartments down from an ex-bf. His 300 sq. ft. efficiency was covered top to bottom in massive drawings and paintings of loops, knots and intertwined strings. The paintings weren’t really that great, I don’t think he’d ever shown any of his work, he just seemed like a normal guy who was obsessed with these shapes. This obsession perplexes me. Cloth studies aren’t anything new, but besides just a drawing exercise, I was also trying to get inside the mind of someone captivated by producing the same object over and over, seemingly indifferent to the evocative repercussions of repetition. While my work has themes, I feel like I’m trying to show different sides of the same thing in various ways. I suppose I tinker because in the future I may need to draw upon the lessons learned, kinesthetically figured out. For me, there’s really no better way to learn than to attempt and apply it to myself. I’m also fascinated by The Other: obsessive and compulsive artists who must be constantly active, people for whom drawing is an end in itself. The drawing I’ve done lately is a means to something else.

Pencil, ink, acrylic, collage
March 2010

My scanner really sucks at picking up pencil drawings! This quality is terrible, but a scanner’s all I have at the moment as my digital camera broke a couple of months ago.

Pencil, ink, acrylic
January-February 2010

Lately I’ve been doodling a lot, trying to regain a sense of design. It’s funny, because although I’m a full-time graphic designer (and production artist and customer service rep and project manager and copywriter and…), I feel I’ve lost a sense of visual design, of creating and arranging elements within a space. Or maybe I’m just now seeing the differences between the two, because I don’t have any creative blockage when it comes to arranging information (text and images), but in composing an image that’s not an accident, or taken from life, I’m at a loss.

Colored pencil and acrylic on wood
May 2009
part of the Staring at Screens series