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 Lisa Fittipaldi / Gallery Soco Gallery Soco's Jason Segel is pleased to announce the recent release of Lisa Fittipaldi's book, A Brush with Darkness, by Andrews McMeel Publishing. In A Brush with Darkness, the former CPA shares her inspiring story of personal and perceptual transformation from the day her vision failed in 1993 to today, when she is recognized as the world's only profoundly blind realist painter. When Lisa Fittipaldi went blind at the age of forty- seven, she descended into a freefall of anger and denial that lasted for two years. In this moving memoir, she paints a vivid picture of the perceptual and emotional darkness that accompanied her vision loss, and her arduous journey back into the sighted world through mastery of the principles of art and color. The challenge of a child's watercolor set, thrown down like a gauntlet by her frustrated husband, opened the door to a new life. Discovering that her ability to master the small world of the canvas enabled her to navigate the wide world she'd lost, she painstakingly taught herself to draw and paint, substituting rigorous study of the principles of art and color theory for her lost vision. Lisa doesn't see color, distance, dimension, or print. Yet she depicts groups of people caught in the activities of daily living in astonishing detail and spectacular color. She has sold over 500 original paintings internationally. Scientists and researchers seek out her insight into vision and perception. "I truly feel that unless blindness had toppled the carefully maintained edifice I called my life, there is no way that I would be the kinder, more fulfilled person I am today," Lisa writes. "I found my life's passion in painting. Blindness took away my sight but gave me clarity of vision. It took blindness to teach me the meaning of love and friendship." Lisa's original work and her print series can be seen at Gallery Soco, 1714-A South Congress. Her book is available online through Amazon.com. |
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Margarita Cabrera / Women and Their Work Currently at Women and Their Work is the new exhibition, Margarita Cabrera: Maquila. Born in Monterrey and raised in Mexico City, Salt Lake City and El Paso,Cabrera became interested in the maquiladoras or factories south of the border around 2001. After researching and visiting these plants, she began making soft sculptures of household appliances such as blenders and coffee makers. In addition to the soft sculptures, Cabrera has created Volkswagen Beetles, another product of Mexico that has affected their economy in significant ways. The appliance sculptures along with the large scale Beetle works are made from vinyl, plastics and other materials made in Mexico, most of which are toxic. Situating her work amongst pop legends like Oldenburg and Warhol, Cabrera's point is driven home. They are grounded in American consumerism. Yet they are not merely celebratory or ironic. They address political issues that straddle borders with a smart and accessible slant. This exhibition opens October 9 and continues through November 13, 2004.
New work by artists Faith Gay and Lauren Levy is currently on view at d. berman gallery. One could say the two address family life in different ways - Gay's style is uninhibited and humorous - Levy's a bit more reserved and reverential. Gay's work continues to celebrate color and pattern. Whether in her wall installations made of fused colorful plastic beads, her larger dot-grid compositions mounted on wood, or her polka dotted and striped soft sculptures propped up around the gallery, Gay approaches her craft with unbridled enthusiasm and childlike playfulness. New to her work are the incorporation of representational elements in her beaded wall pieces that now combine figures resembling cave paintings with rainbows and hearts reminiscent of pre-teen girl doodling. Even more impressive are her op art inspired dot-rids, slickly resin coated and mounted on wood. No longer symmetrically placed within one another, her dots, or orbs, bring to mind eggs or embryos, perhaps influenced by her experience as a new mother, but in no way lacking in sophistication. Gay received her BFA from The University of Texas in 1995 and has exhibited widely in the state. Levy is known primarily for her sculptures made from buttons and wire. While two remarkably corporeal figures hang on wire from the ceiling in this show, the majority of her new work takes shape in photo-based collage. The collages are said to explore the theme of memory. Using old family black and white albums culled from estate sales, she carefully creates collaged compositions, layering silver circles made of small semi-transparent beads over the photos that may represent the cycle of life. Levy reinterprets the family photograph and thereby the family history by cutting photos, re-contextualizing them and sometimes obscuring them altogether. Levy has exhibited her work most recently in a one- person show at the Southwest Center for Craft in San Antonio. She also exhibits regularly in Austin and Houston. This exhibition continues through Saturday, November 6, 2004. For more information, please call 512.477.8877 or see www.dbermangallery.com. 
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