SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio’s first and longest-running contemporary art nonprofit, debuts three new exhibitions during San Antonio’s Contemporary Art Month. The solo exhibitions feature installations by Jimmy James Canales, Megan Harrison, and Justin Korver–three past participants of BSC’s three-month Berlin Residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. While in residence, the artists are given a studio and living space, as well as access to workshops, exhibition opportunities, and studio visits with international curators.
Jimmy James Canales: The Line Layer
Canales’ installation uses play to investigate ideas of standardizations of body, form, shape, and “ultimate” humans. He builds a space that references both physical and virtual games. From board games to video games and arcades to sports fields and playgrounds, he sites his figures in game-inspired environments that often become activated by viewers. This newest body of work considers models and scale, as the artist considers the role of avatars in our lives to capture or project our ideas.
Jimmy James Canales is a San Antonio-based artist working in sculpture and expanded media. Canales received his BFA from the Museum School of Fine Arts in Boston, and his MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His work has been shown throughout the state of Texas as well as nationally, including Boston, MA; Los Angeles, CA; and Las Cruces, New Mexico. Canales is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, most notably the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Award for Artists (2015), the Tanne Foundation Award (2016) and the Vermont Studio Center Artist Grant (2015). He was selected for the 2018-2019 Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency Program at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, DE. He works as a Lecturer in Studio Art: Expanded Media at Texas State University in San Marcos.
Megan Harrison: From Your Brow Rise Leaf and Lyre
Megan Harrison’s newest body of work includes a series of mixed media paintings based on intimate, personal moments and observations. The work reflects her experiences following her return from Berlin as an awardee of BSC’s Berlin Residency Program and throughout the pandemic, namely the shrinking of her world down to the immediate family unit. The paintings draw aesthetic influence and are inspired by Greek epic poetry, altarpieces, and medieval tableau to address themes of mortality, loss, tragedy, the universality of human emotions, destruction, and preservation. The paintings find kinship with precious objects that function in ritual or religious ceremony
Megan Harrison earned a BFA from Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2008, and an MFA from the University of Texas San Antonio, 2012. Her work has exhibited nationally and internationally, including works on permanent display at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and City Hall of San Antonio. Locally, her work has been exhibited at the McNay Art Museum and Sala Diaz. She was awarded a full fellowship at The Vermont Studios in 2015 and was selected by Blue Star Contemporary for the Künstlerhaus Bethanien residency program in Berlin, German in 2019 where she lived with her husband and young son for 6 months.
Justin Korver: Buck
Korver continues his investigation of gendered language and cultural practices. This series considers the romantic innuendo present in hunting culture through mixed media, sculpture, prints, and a wall mural. Korver often collapses gendered art and craft processes, such as woodworking and sewing, to subvert and destabilize our existing ideas about masculine and feminine identities. His aesthetic sensibilities are deeply influenced by modernism and his upbringing in Iowa within a family of carpenters and the construction industry . This exhibition follows Korver’s 2019 Künstlerhaus Bethanien residency as a part of BSC’s Berlin Residency Program.
Justin Korver is artist and educator living and working in San Antonio, Texas. Born in Iowa, Korver moved to Holland, Michigan to complete his undergraduate work at Hope College. While in Michigan, he was influenced by the heritage of mid-century design and discovered a passion for hardware stores. He lived and worked briefly in New York through the N.Y.C.A.M.S. program where he interned with Phoebe Washburn who influenced his early studio practice. He holds an MFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and teaches as a full-time lecturer at Texas A&M, San Antonio.
Also on view is Threads Bare, an exhibition investigating intersections of art and fashion through textiles and related materials as medium or subject to generate a more expansive understanding of how fashion and adornment play a role in defining individual and cultural identities. The Art Learning Labs presents the Black Art Library which was created by curator Asmaa Walton as a tool to educate people on the numerous contributions of Black artists, art historians, and creatives who have historically been overlooked in art education
The Line Layer, From Your Brow Rise Leaf and Lyre, and Buck open on March 4 and will remain on view through May 29, 2022.
