Clay and Ash: New Works by Sandria Hu organized by the El Paso Museum of Art
Organized by the El Paso Museum of Art, the exhibition presents new work by Ms. Hu, who is currently Professor of Art at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, where she has taught since 1975. The artist will not only be present at the members’ opening on February 10, where she will give a gallery talk, but she will also conduct a series of artist-in-residence printmaking demonstrations for Albany High School art students on February 9.
Christian Gerstheimer, Curator, El Paso Museum of Art and curator of the exhibition, said, “Clearly, Sandria Hu’s ‘paintings’ are handmade constructions to which paint and other materials are applied that evoke the soil and climates where she has lived. ‘Clay’ refers to the clay the artist has seen in the many parts of the world that she has worked and ‘Ash’ refers to the covering of gray ash experienced after a forest fire near the town that the artist lived in Czechoslovakia.”
Hu explains the abstract imagery in her painted constructions this way: “The strong and vibrant movement in my paintings is motivated by the extreme weather and climate, by the soil movement, the wind and rain that changes the soil quickly and just as the weather stops, the soil movement stops.”
Galveston Center for the Arts Curator Clint Willour, who has followed Hu’s work for many years, commented in a catalogue essay, “Hu has managed to capture the feel of the effects of wind and rain, of sun and shadow, earth and sky, night and day, clay and ash. In doing so, she allows us to share her experience in a most fulfilling way.”