Public Reception:
Fri, September 15: 5 – 8 p.m.
Sat, September 16: 1 – 5 p.m.
Artist Talk:
Sat, September 16: 2:00 p.m.
Red Maple Gallery Houston, located in the Museum District, inaugurates the fall exhibition season with Source Material, featuring new works by Houston artist Michael Golden. Based on a 30-year practice of keeping files of images – photos, drawings, clippings, postcards, Xeroxes – Golden has amassed a collection from which to draw for his paintings and studio lectures. Many images have never been incorporated into his work; others are used repeatedly and serve as symbols for the main theme of his work, “What makes a life?” Golden says that the collages in this exhibit are very specific to his life experiences and are not intended as studies for future paintings like the previous collages he has made.
The paintings that are included in this exhibition continue his practice of “collapsing three-dimensional reality into a two-dimensional topology.” Blind in one eye since birth, Golden paints to re-create his monocular experience. In his paintings of birds and other animals he challenges the definition of the “naturalist artist” by embracing artificiality in subject and style, the implausible in composition and background, and the spiritual in content. The energetic presence, beauty and personal meanings in his work are more important than any hidden content Golden may or may not intend.
Houston’s Rudolph Projects/Artscan Gallery organized a 20-year retrospective of Golden’s work in 2016 which then traveled to the Beverly Arts Center in his home town of Chicago. He was included in “The Abstract Impulse” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and has shown at Artists’ Space and The Painting Center in New York City, as well as Dallas, Toronto, Boston, St. Louis, Washington, DC and other cities. He has received numerous awards including two Individual Artist Grants from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.
Michael Golden received his MFA at the University of Illinois. He maintains a studio at Spring Street Studios in the Sawyer Yards Campus of the Washington Corridor Arts District.
Show Up: Michael Golden (Arts and Culture TX)
http://www.voyagehouston.com/interview/art-life-michael-golden
About the Curator
Diane Griffin Gregory
Independent Consultant and Curator, Houston, TX
Diane Griffin Gregory is the Organizer and Curator for “Source Material,” the fall 2017 inaugural exhibition for Red Maple Gallery Houston. Gregory, through Caslin Gregory & Associates, Consultants for Arts and Culture, has been in business since 2005. She has a B.A. in French and a B.A. in Studio Art from the University of St. Thomas, Houston. From 1992-2000, Gregory was employed at Art League Houston and held various positions, including interim director. She was administrative director at Houston Center for Photography from 2000-2005. Her partnership with Jean Caslin spanned ten years and included numerous co-curated exhibitions as well as participation as reviewers in FotoFest biennials from 2006-2018. Gregory is an experienced career consultant, grant writer and independent curator working both with individual clients as well as organizations such as Houston Community College-Central Art Department, Houston Methodist, Spring Street Studios and Summer Street Studios at Sawyer Yards, and Art League of Baytown and Sterling Municipal Library, Baytown, Texas.
