FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 14, 2022
STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Four trans artists will explore the trans experience through painting, drawing, textile, and digital creativity in an exhibition of work — Power Fantasy — Jan. 17-Feb. 6 at the Clyde H. Wells Gallery of Art on the Tarleton State University campus in Stephenville.
The artists will display contemporary intermedia and participate in a university-wide digital lecture and Q&A during a virtual reception open to the public.
For takeaways expect a beautifully designed zine, created in conjunction with Third Space DFW, a local social collective dedicated to a Queer Normative agenda, and a QR code leading to a compilation of resources related to the trans community but relevant for everyone.
Pia Bakala’s paintings present voluptuous, ambiguous forms situated in the wilderness. Their postures beckon yet repel the viewer with the ferocity of a Venus flytrap.
Through softness in color and substrate, the artist Chalkley creates shelter-like forms that double as a cozy, ethereal refuge. Textiles and pastel tones counter the accepted harshness in contemporary discourse. These works offer a peek into a world of mutual understanding.
Gio Coronado builds realms of geometric landscapes in exuberant colors. His utopian spaces come with a guidebook on how to get there through a zine deconstructing the false roles society imposes on people just trying to thrive.
Jay Dye’s work straddles the physical and the immaterial as she crafts glitched-out visions of humanity where faces are informed but not imprisoned by cyborg existence. Distorted in oscillating psychedelic configurations, Dye contemplates the implications of hyperreal identities in an increasingly digitized culture.
Tarleton’s College of Liberal and Fine Arts Department of Art; the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and International Programs; and Third Space DFW sponsor the exhibit.
A founding member of The Texas A&M System, Tarleton State University is breaking records — in enrollment, research, scholarship, athletics, philanthropy and engagement — while transforming the lives of approximately 18,000 students in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Bryan and online. For 125 years, Tarleton State has been committed to accessible higher education opportunities for all while helping students grow academically, socially and professionally through programs that emphasize real world learning and address regional, state and national needs.