COMFORT — MixHaus Gallery presents their upcoming exhibit titled “disturbances” featuring work by Texas artists Kari Englehardt, Nate Cassie and Parker Duke, which runs through Oct. 27.
“disturbances” coalesced around three artists’ perspectives of the interplay between humans and the environment of West Texas. Kari Englehardt’s botanical works of petroleum phytoremediators, Nate Cassie’s oilfield-glazed ceramics and the environmental sound collage of Parker Duke offer individual examinations of this sometimes-fraught relationship.
The exhibit will take place at MixHaus Gallery, 716 High St. in Comfort, as well as public spaces of Hotel Giles across the street. It was part of the Sept. 21 Comfort Arts Festival.
The result is an exhibition of chance sensory beauty derived from the Permian Basin.
“These botanical works are my hopeful visual lens into an area of research and environmental concern worthy of more attention,” Englehardt said. “They explore plant-based solutions for revegetating the contaminated soils of the 3.5-million-plus abandoned oil and gas drill sites across the U.S.”
“Using water from some of these abandoned well sites, I mixed a glaze recipe,” Nate Cassie said, “and found that it produced a disturbed surface on the finished ceramic pieces in a way that tap water did not.”
Englehardt is a visual mixed media artist and holds a bachelor’s degree in science from UT Austin and a certificate in botanical illustration from the New York Botanical Garden. Her work has been shown nationally and is included in both private and corporate collections. She lives and works in San Antonio, Marfa and New York.
Cassie is a conceptual, mixed-discipline artist. He holds a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, and a master’s degree from UTSA. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in public and private collections. He has lived and worked in San Antonio since 1993.
Parker Duke is an audio and visual collage artist focusing on breathing new life into forgotten music and film. Raised in San Antonio, he relocated to Fort Davis in 2020 and works as a telescope operator and instrument specialist at the McDonald Observatory.
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