I love that my studio practice now includes more reading and ruminating than ever before. This week I'm working on curriculum for a series of workshops I'll be teaching with the Art Students League of Denver. That's right, I'll be back in Denver this June for a lecture and a Saturday of workshops aimed at building participant's agency and appreciation for the medium of collage and the weight of image appropriation in relation to culture, identity, memory and place. If interested in learning more, visit the Art Students League website for registration information. LET'S GET INTO IT!
#MiTierraDAM in Art Forum Critic's Pick
Mi Tierra: Contemporary Artists Explore Place in this week's Art Forum Critic's Picks! Thanks to Chelsea Weathers for her thoughtful insight on the work on view including a sweet nod to my installation, We were not always fallen from the mountain.
Mi Tierra @ Denver Art Museum
As one of 13 artists who created installations at the Denver Art Museum for Mi Tierra: Contemporary Artists Explore Place, I recorded a short video with them during my installation of WE WERE NOT ALWAYS FALLEN FROM THE MOUNTAIN. Even though it was only a few months ago it is a sweet reminder of all the things that were going through my head as I was taking on the challenge of creating a giant new work. Take a peek!
Mi Tierra: Contemporary Artists Explore Place is on view at the Denver Art Museum through October 22, 2017.
#bossbabesATX April 2017 Resident Artist
As part of my time with #bossbabesATX this April, I recently had the best cpnversation with their board member, Leslie Lozano, to talk about my practice and imagined purpose the last several months as I continue to navigate the world as a self-employed artist. It has been a challenge, but knowing that I have the support of an incredible community of creative women entrepreneurs has been invaluable. I treasure conversations like the one here and I hope other young artists feel encouraged to take a chance on themselves, too.
In SLOMO
2017, wow! We've made it this far and as this first month of 2017 has provided so much necessary frenetic energy, I'm sliding into this week with a little focused meditation. As my soundtrack, I'm thrilled to announce a recent collaboration with UK-based dark ambient band, Slomo. Their fourth album ‘Transits’ features a small painting of mine for it's cover and the deliciously slow celestial tracks are perfect for moving with intention and grace.
‘Transits’ finds the duo of Holy McGrail and Howard Marsden further psychedelicising their core guitar/synth drone sound with loops, bit-crushers and ring modulators to deliver three shimmering pieces for frozen night skies.
The music is psychedelic, instrumental and abstract and I'm honored to have worked with the musicians to bring a face to their new sound. Follow the link above to experience Slomo's music and float away.
COMING SOON @ The Denver Art Museum
OVER THE MOON to announce my participation in an upcoming exhibition at the Denver Art Museum! I'll be spending the next 6 months preparing for a MASSIVE installation and I am so thankful to the wonderful curators at the DAM for all their creative input and their support, thus far. This is going to be a game changer, as I prepare to create the largest scale installations I've ever constructed. Keep it here and on my Instagram feed, as I document my travels collecting materials and inspiration for the work and document my journey in better understanding my place as an artist in Texas and Mexico.
Check out the curator's statement below and explore the websites of the 12 other artists that will on view with me:
Mi Tierra: Contemporary Artists Explore Place will feature site-specific installations by 13 Latino artists that express experiences of contemporary life in the American West. Energizing and vibrant artwork will be presented by Carmen Argote (Los Angeles), Jaime Carrejo (Denver), Gabriel Dawe (Dallas), Claudio Dicochea (San Antonio), Daniela Edburg (San Miguel de Allende), Justin Favela (Las Vegas), Ana Teresa Fernández (San Francisco), Ramiro Gomez (West Hollywood), John Jota Leaños (San Francisco), Dmitri Obergfell (Denver), Ruben Ochoa (Los Angeles), Daisy Quezada (Santa Fe), and Xochi Solis (Austin).
These artists examine diverse narratives of migration and the complex layering of cultures throughout the Western United States through ideas related to labor, nostalgia, memory, visibility, and displacement. Installations will incorporate mixed-media, performance-based video art, digital animation, fiber constructions, painting, sculpture, and ceramics.
To foster creativity and provide insight into the artistic process, the on-site development of the installations will be visible to the public beginning in December 2016, with scheduled opportunities for visitors to engage with artists. The exhibition will open February 19, 2017, and will be on view through October 22 of that year.
IMAGE: Dmitri Obergfell, Statues Also Die (Mauricio), 2015 (detail). Plaster and graphite; dimensions variable. Image courtesy of Gildar Gallery and Casa Maauad. © Dmitri Obergfell
Paper Darts x Xochi Solis
WOWEE! When I got the sweet email from Meghan Murphy, Editor-in-Chief of Paper Darts Magazine, to be featured on their beautiful blog, I couldn't resist! Paper Darts is a literary + art magazine and publisher that is volunteer run by 8 fierce advocates for uncommon work by new voices, paired with custom illustration. After getting lost in the webpages of their dynamically designed website, I have quickly become a HUGE fan and love the feature they produced. But don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself by following the link above and while you're there do yourself a solid and take in the rest of their inspiring content! Thank, PD team for including me!
UO Studio Visits: Xochi Solis
Every year creatives, musicians, tech jockeys, and general all around weirdos descend on my home town of Austin, TX for a little thing called SXSW. This year I strategically scheduled an artist residency (more on that later) during this jam-packed week, but boy was I so happy to have the venerable Leigh Patterson reach out about an opportunity to interview in a special Austin focused edition of UO Studio Visit for Urban Outfitters. Recent clients and collaborations for Patterson include: synonym journal, sight unseen, alldayeveryday, remodelista and her interview questions were thoughtful, considerate and really gave me pause for self reflection.
To take a peek at just the most luminous photos of my studio taken by Austin-based photographer Katie Jameson, plus learn a little more about what I've been inspired by and what projects lay ahead follow the link here. Thank you, Leigh + Katie!
ART for YOUR EAR x The Jealous Curator
I've been one of the lucky to have a super special ally in artist and writer, Danielle Krysa AKA The Jealous Curator.
The Jealous Curator launched in February 2009, as a place for Krysa to show artwork that made her green with envy. Over seven years later, that “jealousy” has turned magically, wonderfully, and thankfully into inspiration. Inspiration for herself as an artist but also inspiration to so many others who read her blog and share her unabashed enthusiasm for artwork and art practices that produce awe and wonder.
Great fortune came in 2012 when Danielle first blogged about me and since then we have worked on a book project, a Land of Nod print and most recently many years later, we finally spoke on the phone and heard each other's chipper voice. The result is Episode 39 of The Jealous Curator's podcast ART for YOUR EAR. Take a listen and get to know a little more about me and my practice through a winding conversation about paper, music and err..margaritas. ALSO, there are tons more episodes from fabulous artists all around the world and Danielle publishes a new one each and every Saturday. Sounds like you have yourself a new audio obsession?
You and I were meant to live in the abstract
Really feeling this video on SFMOMA's website where Ellsworth Kelly recalls his first encounter with abstraction and reflects on how his decades-long fascination with line, form, and color has manifested in both his paintings and his creative process. I have always thought of my own meditation on shape and color summed up in the same words in which Kelly describes his fascination with the mysteriousness of color and shape. Take a watch!
Boulder x BMoCA
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the San Antonio-based curator Patty Ortiz invited me to participate in a ten person group show at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art this May and I happily accepted! For this exhibit Ortiz requested two "really big" wall installations and asked that I dream big and create wall works that spanned upwards of six to seven feet in width. A little daunting to move a good three feet beyond my comfort zone and well beyond any size work that I have created before, but I took on the challenge. With seven full days in Colorado I set out to make the best and BIGGEST works to date and had a blast doing it!
Founded in 1972 by a group of local artists, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) is one of Colorado’s premier venues for the exploration of contemporary art. BMoCA provides enriching experiences for nearly 30,000 regional, national, and international visitors annually through innovative exhibitions and engaging programs for all audiences. In 1976 the organization moved to its current location in downtown Boulder, a 1906 historic landmark building that once served as a warehouse. From the minute I walked into the space, I could feel nothing but good energy and was so excited to get to jump on the walls nestled in the same gallery as the incredibly talented Penelope Umbrico and Matthew Chambers.
What I expected when planning for this installation was long days of quick decisions and sore legs from climbing up and down ladders, but what I didn't expect was how much fun I was going to have with the curator Patty (seen below), her assistant Yvonne Montoya and the other visiting artists flown in to install.
Man Bartlett (above) was one of those artists and during his short stint of installation in the gallery before jetting back to NYC, he and I had numerous thoughtful and considerate conversations about the art world over delicious Boxcar Coffee Roaster pour overs. Man is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in New York. His diverse practice includes drawing, collage, video, performance and digital projects that use online platforms as outlets for playful yet subversive social critique. My favorite work of his in our show together is called RAGA/CHAKRA, a continuous 24-hour cycle over six phases to incorporate psychoacoustic binaural audio, The Schumann Resonance, crowd-sourced messages of people describing their surroundings, recordings of clandestine numbers stations, traditional Mongolian throat singing, analog and digital synthesizers, and more.
We also bonded over our stay in one of the most bizarre artist accommodations I have ever been hosted in named SWOON. While there we got to meet the artist Berndnaut Smilde, most famous for his cloud making, who was just finishing up a short residency in Boulder where he was invited to make a rainbow of all things.
Back in the galleries, days were spent listening to super loud Kate Bush and dancing on top of ladders as the two works finally began taking shape. Informed by the rainy cool mountain air, the emphasis on the new age and mystical "hippie" culture of Boulder and the dawning of summer, the completed works hold snippets of mushrooms from horticulture diaries, glossy images of crystals and bright and bold swaths of deep greens and lilacs.
At the opening, I was introduced to so many wonderful people and had the pleasure of talking about my work in the context of the show's title Flatlander and its exploration of how our compulsive relationship with the flat screen and the Internet has changed our view of the world. Ironically, many of the people I met during the reception came up to me because they follow me here or along my Instagram adventures, their interests sparked by images of my work they found while google searching or what have you. It was certainly wonderful to share the work in person and get to show of the not-so flat aspects of the work that they surely miss when glancing at it on the digital screen.
My week in Boulder was filled with Farmer's Markets, more than one meal at Oak and The Kitchen Next Door. Multiple coffees and croissants at Boxcar, the best sandwich on gluten-free bread I have ever had at Cure, several bottles of Rose Bud kombucha from the Boulder company Upstart, and so many wonderful meals with art patrons of both Denver and Boulder. A HUGE HUGE shout out to Patty Ortiz and her company Patty Ortiz Unincorporated for curating such a fantastic show, the amazing staff at BMoCA and to San Antonio's Liberty Bar for their sponsorship of the exhibit! To close out my whirlwind tour of Boulder and Denver, I hit up the brand new Clyfford Still Museum and just stood in awe of the gorgeous colors and paint strokes within the museum's perforated concrete ceiling that diffuse natural light just perfectly creating the most terrific environment for art viewing. It was the best way ever to end an art experience and I jumped on a plane back to Austin so rejuvenated.
If Colorado is calling you this summer, please check out the show at BMoCA up now through September 13!
Designlovefest's DRESS YOUR TECH x Xochi Solis
In my work I aim to keep the viewer’s eye moving through my compositions by rewarding curiosity with unexpected juxtapositions and discoveries amongst the gestural brush strokes and collaged elements. When asked to create images for designlovefest's Dress Your Tech series, I immediately wanted to zoom in and share some of my favorite intersecting moments.
Thank you designlovefest for inviting me to create super special outfits for your series, I hope you find one you love!
Dirty Laundry Magazine x Xochi Solis
Check out this funny little essay I wrote for the lovely folks at Dirty Laundry Magazine all about that time in 5th grade I sang "Feelings" at the top of my lungs. I also made a special mixtape just for the occasion of its release that I will share shortly. The task of writing a personal essay was no small feat for me, but I loved Dirty Laundry's mission so much I gave it a whirl. Through original essays and Q&A sessions, the magazine functions as a curated platform for creative voices to be heard. Dirty Laundry is a collaborative effort between three self-proclaimed individuals – an illustrator, a designer and a writer – typically hard at work in a small DC apartment. It was a little like writing for this blog, but a bit scarier because I knew at least a few people would be reading it :) Hope you like it!
#UAtakeover with Xochi Solis
This past Friday I had the distinct pleasure of taking over the @upriseartnyc Instagram, inundating their fine followers with pictures from a day in the life of me! It was super great to get to share my process through pictures.
Huge THANK YOU to the incredibly talented Courtney Chavanell for her photo assist on some of these, a real gem that girl!
Uprise X Norwood Club
This past week I whisked myself off to New York City for a quick and busy trip to create a site-specific installation for Uprise Art at the Norwood Club in Chelsea. So much fun to get to stretch out in the beautiful architecture of the early Victorian architecture of Norwood. My first installation work in another state and certainly my first install in a house listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Check out these gorgeous pics of my upriseXnorwood installation by photographer Sam Teich, courtesy of Uprise Art. Wish this place was closer than NYC so I could hang out and look at all the beautiful artwork on a regular basis! Speaking of NYC, this week is the Affordable Art Fair and my work will be up there at Uprise's booth B-1! If you're in the area, pop over and say hello to the Uprise team for me.
Perfect Strangers
I have recently been working on fluffing up my resume with exciting forthcoming projects and the insertion of a beefier new publications section that will include DRUMROLL please...the exciting new book I'm in coming soon to bookstores!
This September the book Collage: Contemporary Artists Hunt and Gather, Cut and Paste, Mash Up and Transform will be available to the public and I am super giddy to get my hands on one. Thanks to Danielle Krysa aka The Jealous Curator for all her hard work and her unwavering support for all of us Collage artists, but especially thank you for keeping us all up-to-date on the soon to be available new book that we've made together. Until its arrival, I've been working on my website and resume to reflect all the exciting things to come. During this time of clerical upkeep, I have apprehensively searched the internet, trepidatiously googling my own name to see what pops up. With amazement and a little embarrassment, I have found lovely little blog posts from all over the world written with such genuine affection and admiration, that after a few I had to take a break for fear of taking myself and the internet too seriously.
One such blog post that the creators Ariel Torres and Sean Collins were so kind to email me about was especially beautiful. Their newly launched site CHROMATIC WATCH is just getting off the ground and has a poetic take on artists and their work. I especially loved their use of "sun, fruit, face" as descriptive words for my paintings. Thank you to Danielle, Ariel and Sean for making me and so many other artists feel so great about the work that we do! It's amazing how excellent people like you, perfect strangers often times only held together by only the portal of the computer screen, could care so much about making a connection through art.
Uprise Art + Me
Thrilled to announce that I'm the newest artist on Uprise Art! I first heard about Tze Chun's entrepreneurial vision flipping through Marie Claire last November while waiting for my nails to dry and I thought to myself, Wow! This lady has a vision! Oh, and that her outfit was sassy and looked exactly like someone I'd want as a friend.
Flash forward only a few weeks after that and I received the loveliest email from Christina Lawrence—a curatorial coordinator at Uprise—asking about my work and if I'd consider joining their team. Uprise Art is an online gallery with the aim to demystify the act of collecting and make acquiring original artwork accessible to anyone with the desire to own something that they truly love. What I have enjoyed most about working with them so far is their genuinely positive attitude and helpfulness. I immediately felt confident that Tze and her team wanted me to be a part of the process and actually loved my work and wanted to share it with more people. Fingers crossed that everything goes well, but I can already tell that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Check out this superb interview with Tze in The Everygirl and please take a peek at the other truly talented artists on their roster, they all are fantastic and I am truly delighted to be in such great company!
Image via The Every Girl
Studio Visits
I just had a delightful studio visit with one of my favorite Austin photographers, Elizabeth Chiles. We discussed many things from Lavender Vanilla donuts to why not going to art openings won't kill you but forcing yourself to go to one just might. It was a wonderful Sunday morning and ended in a terrific artwork exchange where we both walked away with a new piece to add to our collection. It also reminded me of how important having conversations in your studio can be. It is a space not unlike your living room, intimate and snug, and the topic surely starts out about artwork and studio practice, but can equally end up being about any number of things. Sometimes the pressure to perform as an artist can stifle honest and easy dialogue, but I can say for now I have been very lucky to have eager and curious visitors open to answers like "I'm actually not quite sure why I did that." For instance, over the summer I visited with Adrienne Breaux from CultureMap Austin and we had a great interaction diving into the history of why I began making art and what kind of artwork I am interested in making now. It was a great article and even months later, I am struck by how spot on some of her observations were. After this weekend's visit I believe I am hooked and now want to host impromptu tea parties at my studio just to see what kind of tête-à-tête I can experience!
Artist in Residence @ Arquetopia Oaxaca
As promised, here is the scoop on my upcoming plans to jet set to Oaxaca for three whole weeks this summer! I was excitedly accepted to attend a short residency program to learn about natural pigments and paper and cloth dying techniques through the Arquetopia Oaxaca program. Arquetopia is a nonprofit foundation promoting development, social transformation and productivity through artistic, cultural, and educational programs. They are experienced in negotiation and reinvestment of resources for local arts development in Mexico and pair international artists with local artists for a truly rewarding exchange of information, skills and community.
During my Arquetopia residency, I will use my time to learn the skilled craft of cultivating natural dyes from the landscape and ecosystem of Southern Mexico from a wealth of talented local artists. I hope to integrate a richer material nature into my work and provide an intersection of my current abstract painting practice with that of a long-standing Mexican tradition. In tandem with learning these skills, I am also hoping to use this opportunity to explore my identity as a second generation Mexican American and begin investigating the incorporation of these ancestral traditions into my contemporary practice.
It has been 6 years since I last visited Mexico and I can't wait to be surrounded by the sounds, smells, colors and food that stole my heart back in 2004 when I first studied there. More pictures will certainly follow but in the meantime, I am desperately trying to find my acento again so I can at least order a taco without embarassing myself. Ah, the plight of a second generation Tejana!
Design For Mankind x Xochi Solis
Thrilled to be included on one of my favorite blogs today! Design for Mankind gives advice for tackling the sometimes muddy intersection between one's creative mind and the real world. Not only tackle it but how to wow it with grace and style! Erin Loechner and her team put together a dynamic and visually stimulating blog chock full of beautiful things and inspirations for greatness. Summed up in her own words Loechner describes her blog as, an ongoing dinner party conversation with me and the people/objects/ideas that inspire me from a variety of mediums: art, fashion, design, science, technology, history. Come, sit at my table. I’d love to have you.
I was pleased as punch to be invited to her party! BTW Her Instagram feed is pretty great, too.