Detail of Collaboration with poet Kelli Hines. I Courtesy of Gaworecki, Saucedo
Editor’s note: The artist’s pronouns have been corrected.
The collaborative exhibition Color:Story 2019 combines the work of local artists and authors to create an all-inclusive event for Houston creatives. The free event will open with a reading on January 12th from 5-8 p.m. and run through March 23, in Gallery 200 at The Silos at Sawyer Yards.
Merging the worlds of the visual and literary is something that artists Marlo Saucedo and Leslie Gaworecki wanted to bring to the Houston community. Through this event, the two hope to bridge creative works of art to create a new form.
“We knew how separate visual artists’ and writers/poets’ worlds can be, while their internal creative processes can be so very similar,” Saucedo said. “This collaborative exhibition is built to introduce and form connections between two creative worlds.”
After working on the collaborative piece “What if?” with Ashley Ellington Brown, Saucedo and Gaworecki realized their styles complemented each other well.
“Leslie’s brightly-colored layered backgrounds of acrylic and my precise handwritten detail on top of it, with Ashley’s beautiful words, elicited such positive reactions that we started thinking about an entire exhibition of such pieces,” Saucedo said.
Gaworecki tends to work with “free-forms large, deep-sided canvases into emotion, light and color with layer upon layer of bright acrylic paint with words and shapes scraped or painted into the colors, hidden and revealed among the layers,” Saucedo said.
In contrast, Saucedo herself “fits essays into precise and intricate planned pieces with calligrams: Messages, stories and researched lists written into form in India ink atop Chiyogami paper on a mix of acrylic and high-end latex paint,” she said.
While somewhat different in their mediums and processes, Saucedo and Gaworecki design to inspire emotionally and depict colorful stories through their works.
Since Saucedo and Gaworecki tend to both use words to complement their works, they thought having an event to showcase local writers would be a way to exhibit their work and also introduce them to the visual arts realm.
With the help of Writespace, a local writing institution, Saucedo and Gaworecki asked for submissions and made their selection based on how well they thought their works would collaborate with the writers’.
Whether they wanted to do collaborative pieces or on their own, the two worked with the writers to navigate the best medium for the individuals’ works.
“Leslie writes and scratches hidden and visible words and phrases into colorful acrylic layering, and I create paper-and-ink collages with thousand-word stories,” Saucedo said.
After taking submissions, Saucedo and Gaworecki settled on 17 local writers that will have their works on exhibit at the event.
The authors will consist of:
Emanuelee Bean – Rachel Massey Browne – Anjola Coker – Raie Crawford – Brandon R. Dillon – Ayokunle Falomo – Catherine Gentry – Kelli Hines – Adam Holt – G. Paris Johnson – Jen Stephan Kapral – Lisa Levy – Jake Anant Miller – Robin Reagler – Lisa Smallest Leaf (Lisa Toth Salinas) – Ellen Seaton – Holly Walrath
For any questions: https://www.sawyeryards.com/event-calendar
