Your Show of Shows

Essential Dallas gallery exhibits to start an artful 2016

January’s art gallery shows give us the rare opportunity to indulge (nearly) all the senses. From conceptual works that can be perceived as mirthful or menacing to a multifaceted exploration of France’s most famous female writer, there’s a lot to examine.

You can look, listen, and even smell. But remember not to touch!

“The Mythology of Love,” Celia Eberle at Cris Worley Fine Arts
Reception: January 9, 6-8 pm
Exhibition dates: January 9-February 13

Dallas-based multimedia artist Celia Eberle has a reputation for dark subject matter, yet her exploration of one of the strongest human emotions can almost be perceived as whimsical. At least until you take a deeper look.

An inaugural recipient of the Nasher Sculpture Center artist microgrant, Eberle uses the likes of horses, bats — even little lambs —to explore the subterranean aspects of our psyches.

“Her work is truly magical for the most part,” says gallerist Cris Worley. “The best thing about Celia’s work is it has such layered complexity. There’s a definite playfulness to it, but when you dig, some of the inquiries are into the darker parts of the human experience.”

To reveal the concept of l’amour as fully as possible, the artist has created four signature perfumes sold separately from her sculpted bottles topped with poodles or two-headed kittens. A few works have musical components, trilling the likes of “Moonlight Sonata” or hits by Elvis. One little lamb sculpture with its throat slit is a play on both the wedding and sacrificial altar.

“My basic philosophy is anything that isn’t hard science or math is a myth,” Eberle explains. “That leaves the door open to all sorts of imagery or ideas. I take an oblique approach to a concept just to give you a different perspective on the usual thing.

“I am into the subconscious and the things we try to deny within ourselves, and I think humor and playfulness mitigate that.”

“Tubers. Tablets. Turfs. Tails.” Sharon Kopriva at Kirk Hopper Fine Art
Reception: January 9, 6:30-8:30 pm
Exhibition dates: January 9-February 27

For Houston artist Sharon Kopriva, it’s easy being green. Taking an organic approach to her paintings, sculptures, and drawings, she creates work that literally spills off the walls with a lush and lively verdancy.

Drawing on her Catholic upbringing, her connection to the natural world, and her love for her pet Peruvian hounds, Kopriva settled on the four themes of tubers, tablets, turfs, and tails to tell her story.

“The show is more than just green things; it’s different ways I’ve been working,” she explains. “To me it’s about growth. Nature doesn’t have boxes; it grows beyond the limit of your flower bed, wherever it has decided is a place to be.”

Balancing her epic canvases with undulating sculptures hung with rope, refreshed tiles from the Canton flea market, and delicate drawings, she embraces her various media in a way that’s supernatural, indeed.

“Becoming Colette,” Colette Copeland at Reading Room
Reception: January 16, 6-9 pm
Exhibition dates: January 16-February 20

Author of such works as Chéri and Gigi, Colette embodied the lush lifestyle of the Belle Époque like no other author. Similarly monikered artist Colette Copeland couldn’t help but be intrigued by the French writer’s life and achievements, significantly because of the multiplicity in both of their practices.

“When I was younger, I was compelled to investigate my namesake for potential characteristics we might have shared,” Copeland says. “She was a controversial figure who ruptured social mores, refusing to conform to roles subscribed to females of the time.

“Her writing speaks to gender inequities among Parisienne middle and upper classes. My own work often deals with gender roles and subverting social norms.”

Copeland traveled in France last summer to document the sites where Colette lived, worked, and played, a practice that resulted in a performative journey shared through the artist’s videos, prints, and postcards. Both revealing and obscuring the writer, the works include an original sound work composed, performed, and arranged by Dallin B. Peacock fused with a 1960 recording of Colette reading excerpts of her most famous novels in French.

Although the exhibition is an homage to the writer, there’s no required reading (no pun intended) to attend. “I hope the work inspires people to read or reread [the books],” Copeland says. “But ultimately the work is personal. It's an homage, but also an exploration of self through place and history.”

There will be conversation between Colette Copeland and Glasstire’s Richard Bailey on February 20 at 4 pm, the last day of the exhibition.

Hero by Celia Eberle, at Cris Worley Fine Arts.

Photo courtesy of Cris Worley Fine Arts

Hero by Celia Eberle, at Cris Worley Fine Arts.

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RIP Albert

Colorful and iconoclastic Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth dies at 70

Courtesy

Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth

Dallas artist Albert Scherbarth, known for his jubilant creativity which he displayed in a wide range of media, died on February 18; he was 70 years old. According to friends, he suffered a heart attack.

Scherbarth's myriad "canvases" ranged from printmaking to furniture to steel and metal working. He was a colorful presence in the Dallas art scene with a shock of thick hair that stood tall, definitive horn-rimmed glasses, and an unfiltered, no-nonsense personal style.

He was also a key figure in The Cedars district: an urban pioneer who settled in the area directly south of downtown Dallas in the early '80s when the neighborhood was a mostly-deserted collection of abandoned warehouses, before it became a major art nexus.

A post by Lee Harvey's, the Cedars District bar, said that "Some people don’t just live in a neighborhood — they leave their mark on it. Albert did exactly that. Through his art, his presence, and his time at our bar, he became part of the story here. We’ll miss him more than we can say. Rest easy Bert."

He was a real character, as well — a stocky physical presence (he played football in high school) who'd fix his stare upon you as if you were a critter to be studied.

One friend said, "I always feel that Albert is going to spring some meta shit on me every time i see him and he rarely disappoints. What a cool cat."

A native of Nebraska, Scherbarth moved to Dallas in 1979 to earn a master's in fine arts at the University of Dallas, Irving. After graduating in 1981, he began teaching in the community college district, including Brookhaven College, Northlake College, University of Texas at Dallas, and the Creative Art Center, as well as at Dallas' Arts Magnet.

Sculpture by Albert Scherbarth which appeared at the State Fair of Texas in 2018.Laura Walters/Facebook

After graduating from art school, he felt the need to do "real" work like his father, and took jobs in construction and woodwork, which helped shape the very physical nature of his art.

He was one of the early and many artists who resided in the Continental Gin Building, where he worked on his designs and commissions, fabricated other artists’ ideas, and helped galleries with installations, crating, and shipping.

Through the years he made furniture, got into fused and cast glass, poured concrete countertops, and painted, including a successful era of doing giant flower paintings. In his latter years, he acquired a welding machine and worked with builders, designers, and architects constructing screens, fences, furniture, and sculptures.

His works around town include a giant wine tree for Fleming Steakhouse in Frisco, and a sculpture named, "Cecil, age 12" up on Henderson Avenue at Capital Street which was was a finalists for the Henderson Art Prize. He also worked on the famed Bowler Hat sculpture in the Cedars.

In an interview with Voyage Dallas, he said, "I’m constantly looking for more meaning and more permanence in the work that I’m doing," and acknowledged that "I’ve been very, very fortunate to get a lot of really great commissions over the years. I’ve sold a lot of work and fallen into great studio situations – large spaces, cheap rent and wonderful landlords. Today, I think my ignorance of all the pitfalls ahead allowed me to storm through life and I have a certain stubbornness, a dogged determination to succeed."

"My grandfathers died before I came of age, my father died, my favorite uncle died so there was not much in the way of male guidance or perspective on how to be a man, so I’ve just kind of made it up on my own, stumbling through, winging it and I’m still alive, amazingly enough."

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