Texas Tough: Amita Bhatt – Depends Who You Ask

Texas Tough: Amita Bhatt – Depends Who You Ask

Jun 6–Aug 24, 2013

June 6 – August 24, 2013
Project Space

Featuring Jill Bedgood, Amita Bhatt, Sharon Kopriva, and Sherry Owens

Texas Tough features four renowned artists: Jill Bedgood, Amita Bhatt, Sharon Kopriva, and Sherry Owens. Texas Tough is Blue Starʼs first all-women exhibition since Arte Latina: ROAR, in April 2008. This exhibition, which runs from June 6, 2013 to August 24, 2013, includes artists from Austin, Dallas and Houston representing multiple visual arts disciplines.This exhibition was made possible by an NEA grant and the support of DCCD.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

This body of work is anchored in the historic and global phenomenon of geographic and identity politics and seeks to analyze the drama of life, desire, loss, hope, death, violence, conflict, dislocation, and eventual transcendence by combining mythology, and happenstance to create a hyper real stage. Seeking to charge this work with a primal energy while creating utopias/dystopias that are in acceptance of ecstasy and benevolence as well as darkness, suffering, and turmoil. Everything is part of the scheme. Relying heavily on seemingly disjointed imagery to mirror man’s condition and the chaotic and unpredictable power struggles of the contemporary world these wall-sized drawings are infused with a magnified sense of theatrics. Just below the surface of these perverse, funny, playful and sometimes absurd worlds lurk the seething potential of violence ready to burst forth and consume if one looses guard for but a second. This employment of random objects and events also allows fracturing the surface of the canvas without tearing apart the dizzying visual whole while paying homage to mankind’s resilience. The lines continue to remain simple.