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    The Space Within

    Artists explore the seen and unseen in these ambitious Dallas exhibits

    Kendall Morgan
    kendall Morgan
    Jan 26, 2017 | 2:34 pm

    Although at first glance their practices seem miles away from one another, there’s a lot that legendary painter Ross Bleckner and emerging artist John Houck have in common.

     

    Both lend their personal histories to their work, both use methodical processes to reveal their truth, layering the revelations they discover in their own unique ways — and both are currently being featured in one-man shows at the Dallas Contemporary (joining the already wildly successful Bruce Weber retrospective).

     

    Emerging in mid-1970s New York, Bleckner has delved into the concepts of loss and memory as he has deconstructed the actual act of painting throughout his storied career. The artist, who as the subject of a 1995 Guggenheim Museum retrospective, has explored everything from the magnified cellular structures of autoimmune diseases to deconstructed landscapes and still lifes.

     

    Now, with “Find a peaceful place where you can make plans for the future,” his first major exhibition since that retrospective, the painter refuses to stick to a consistent theme, showing everything from larger-than-life geometric canvases (his Dome series) to blurred-out images inspired by crowds at sporting events.

     

    Clearly illustrative of someone with a lot of ideas he wants to share, Bleckner says “Find a peaceful place” has a “flow of imagery that goes essentially from being very concrete to being dissolved by the end into these kind of landscapes and blurry images of crowd scenes.”

     

    “Just like what’s happening in America now, what’s underneath is coming out,” says Bleckner. “That’s been a trope of mine for a long time. My work has always not really been about nature or landscapes, but about recognition, where things come in and out of clarity — just words and ideas and thoughts and the kind of mixture and complexity that goes on in your own mind.”

     

    Admittedly a “very physical painter,” Bleckner literally scrapes out his incandescent birds or ripening blooms from the backgrounds of his canvases. To him, this process is often more important than what he is actually painting.

     

    “I like that kind of chemistry, and I hope through the mixing of chemicals in a hopefully inventive way something new will emerge that’s not necessarily an image or a metaphor, but an actual physical presence based on the chemistry,” he explains. “I’m actually looking for a change in material.”

     

    Taking a no less heady approach to his work is Los Angeles-based computer-programmer-turned-fine-artist John Houck, who uses a combination of photography and painting to explore the unconscious in his show “The Anthologist.”

     

    Originally attending UCLA for a master’s degree in architecture, Houck was inspired to switch his major to fine art after a meeting with postmodern California artist James Welling.

     

    However, his technical background didn’t disappear entirely — his inventive process of photographing, layering, re-photographing, and finally painting over the final result, lends a surreal quality to his color-saturated images, which belies the meaning of the objects he chooses to capture. Seemingly innocuous items such as a model of a toy ship or a sewing kit actually have an emotional resonance influenced by the artist’s years of psychoanalysis.

     

    “I moved into this body of work using the same process of re-photographing, but I started taking objects my parents had given me over the years,” recalls Houck. “I had started seeing a psychoanalyst and told my parents about this, and it was a big question, like ‘What did we do wrong?’ In addition to talking about it, they started giving me things from my childhood.”

     

    Houck photographed these items, eventually expanding from friends and family to outer members of his social circles in a methodology that mirrored therapy. By using his original image as a backdrop for another shot, the final result has a photoshopped look that also plays with the idea of memory.

     

    “The process of re-photographing is not unlike memory, because memory is a very performative imaginative act,” he explains. “There’s this idea that memory is this objective thing, it’s like pulling up a file in a computer, and it’s the way you left it, but actually every time you remember, it changes slightly over time.”

     

    Like Bleckner, Houck finds fulfillment in the reimagining of material, often painting or drawing his ideas before he sets up a tableau to shoot. With a playful quality, his pieces could also embody the same “sense of the possibility of a kind of sublimity” that Bleckner says he hopes the observer will achieve when standing in front of one of his canvases.

     

    “[It’s about] the ability of painting to transcend our physical being so that you feel like a painting is a moody and thoughtful place, and the viewing is matter of self-reflection,” says Bleckner.

     

    In both of these ambitious exhibitions, there is indeed much more than meets the eye.

    False Funnel, by John Houck

    John Houck
      
    Photo courtesy of John Houck
    False Funnel, by John Houck
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    Theater Critic Picks

    From Wilde to 'The Wiz': 8 unmissable July shows in North Texas

    Lindsey Wilson
    Jul 2, 2025 | 10:18 am
    Second Thought Theatre presents Your Wife’s Dead Body
    Photo courtesy of Second Thought Theatre
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    Your instinct during the summer might be to hide out in an air-conditioned theater, and there are plenty of options to do exactly this month. But we would be remiss if we didn't remind you about a North Texas tradition: Shakespeare under the stars. Pack a picnic, bring a blanket, and watch The Bard (and this year Oscar Wilde) at Samuell-Grand Amphitheater with Shakespeare Dallas. Both shows opened in June, but continue through most of July.

    Here are eight shows local shows, listed in order of start date:

    The Importance of Being Earnest
    Shakespeare Dallas, through July 18 extended to July 26
    This witty romantic comedy by Oscar Wilde, first performed in 1895, tells the story of two men who assume the identities of a fictional man named Ernest. This leads them to each fall in love and encounter an assortment of comical problems along the way.

    Othello
    Shakespeare Dallas, through July 20
    In this Shakespearean tragedy, Othello is at the peak of his powers: not only Venice's greatest general but also husband to the noble and beautiful Desdemona. But he does not know that in passing over his servant Iago for promotion, he has created a deadly but brilliant enemy. This production is set in an alternate-history version of the 1990s in which the Venetian empire is the predominant political, military, and economic power.

    King Kirby
    American Chronicle Theatre Co., July 4-12
    This is the story of Jack "King of Comics" Kirby. The play follows him from the tough Jewish ghetto of Hell’s Kitchen in New York, to the harrowing battlefields of Normandy during WWII, to tense Senate hearings in the 1950s. Watch as he creates some of the most iconic heroes in pop culture: Captain America, Thor, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Iron Man, the New Gods, and countless others.

    Your Wife’s Dead Body
    Second Thought Theatre, July 9-26
    Written by Second Though Theatre artistic associate Jenny Ledel in her playwriting premiere, the play takes place in the near future, as Jane takes advantage of a new AI technology that would extend her lifespan ... even if she's not around to see it for herself.

    The Wiz
    Broadway at the Bass, July 15-20
    This all-new production of the groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning musical returns “home” in an all-new pre-Broadway tour, the first one in 40 years. The groundbreaking twist on The Wizard of Oz changed the face of Broadway, from its iconic score packed with soul, gospel, rock, and finger-snapping '70s funk to its stirring tale of Dorothy’s journey to find her place in a contemporary world.

    Noises Off
    Mainstage Irving-Las Colinas, July 18-August 2
    This play-within-a-play captures a touring theater troupe’s production of Nothing On in three stages: dress rehearsal, the opening performance, and a performance towards the end of a debilitating run. Playwright Michael Frayn gives a window into the inner workings of theatre behind-the-scenes, progressing from flubbed lines and missed cues in the dress rehearsal to mounting friction between cast members in the final performance.

    Everybody's Talking About Jamie
    Uptown Players, July 18-August 3
    Inspired by true events, this musical tells the inspiring story of Jamie New, a 16-year-old boy from Sheffield who dreams of becoming a drag queen. His loving mom showers him with endless support but it's not all rainbows for Jamie as his deadbeat dad and some ignorant school kids attempt to rain on his sensational aspirations.

    Shucked
    Broadway at the Bass, July 29-August 3
    This Tony Award-winning musical comedy features a book by Tony Award winner Robert Horn, a score by the Grammy Award-winning songwriting team of Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, and direction by Tony Award winner Jack O’Brien. The corn-fed, corn-bred American musical is sure to satisfy an appetite for great musical theater.

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