UMBRELLA GALLERY

Finding Balance
Artist: Mikey Hernandez

March 1 – April 14 , 2024

FINDING BALANCE is a solo art exhibition by Dallas-based artist Mikey Hernandez. The exhibition is presented in partial fulfillment for the Master of Fine Arts in Art at the University of Dallas, 2024.

I make process-driven, large-scale, non-representational works on paper. Using water-based media as my primary materials, I am exploring mindfulness, yoga and the body as it attempts to find balance in pose and practice. Finding balance is very important as it helps me to ground myself, find inner peace and question my purpose and existence in this world.

I use my sketches as a launching point to explore the body gesturally and determine where I will place my ink. I start each piece on the floor with a wet-on-wet technique dripping watercolor, ink, gouache and water to create a pathway of color and forms. Once I establish major marks, I work intuitively to foster the forms and texture that develop on the paper. When finished, I walk away and allow the pigment to shift, water to evaporate and for the painting to dry. This is exhilarating as I work with a process that allows me to relinquish some control. When desired results have been achieved, I once again respond intuitively to the color and marks made on the paper by using chalk pastels, colored pencils or charcoal to create more dimensionality and enhance implied textures. As I am thinking about the body finding balance, I am also thinking about finding balance within the composition.

In the end, my paintings turn into an enigma, a topographical or cosmic-like landscape that often resembles a universe or nebula. Through scale, form, color, balance and a sense of mystery in the compositions, my aim is to evoke a sense of awe for the viewer. I intend to create a space that allows the viewer to have a sense of serenity, while drawing them to each piece on the wall. In the end, it’s all about the individual experience that one may have within the space.

Glow
Treg Miller

April 27 – June 22, 2024

Treg Miller’s first major solo exhibition in Dallas, Texas will open at Umbrella Gallery on April 27, 2024. The exhibition will showcase the complete series of Treg Miller’s artworks that are based on color, line, shape and form-related datasets, and explore his fascination with the environments – physical, public, virtual, and multidimensional – that play an instrumental role in shaping his artistic vision. Merging collective memories of urban life and nature with a collection of materials invites a poetic and futuristic contemplation of purposeful human, nature, and machine collaborations.

Miller’s array of bright multi-layered works to an assemblage of paper, foam and wood on canvas demonstrate a uniquely dynamic relationship between art, machines and architecture in the future, activating multiple senses and evoking simultaneous belongings. The primary thread that runs throughout his groundbreaking visualizations featuring the juxtaposition of electrical power grids, farm lands and the massive concrete jungle of roadways is the utilization of line, shape and form as primary pigments to create enriched immersive environments. Miller’s depictions emit the sensation of power and light without the flame. Instead, they appear to glow.

For this exhibition, Miller will harness the rich and authentic colors of nature, the lines and shapes of Texas’ freeways and roadways, and the forms of electrical power grids that keep us connected and running. The exhibition will also feature Miller’s iconic Florals that emphasizes our embeddedness in nature and presents an entirely new and poetic way of connecting to it. During the past year, Miller has focused on painting, creating resonant works based on his personal photographic images of the world around him. These sensuous, colorful and powerful yet simplistic paintings hover between the real and the imaginary. The exhibition will feature new paintings that combine Miller’s continuous use of bold color and straightforward shapes using various materials and differing themes.

Umbrella Gallery
2803 Taylor St.
Dallas, TX 75226

Hours:
Monday – Friday
7:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sunday
9:00 am – 1:00 pm

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