By McKayla Rosser/reporter
Works created by Fort Worth artists on display
At the end of Art Corridor II sits artist Daniel Blagg’s Night Walker, an oil painting that depicts a quiet night in a photorealistic style that communicates a variety of emotions.
“It’s a painting about parting ways with a friend,” Blagg said, adding that it was inspired by his own experience. “I never could figure out what went wrong, he just kind of flipped out and took off.”
This parting of ways is depicted in the piece with a pair of one-way signs pointing in different directions, demonstrating that even the closest of friendships can come to a painful end, according to the artist.
“You think things are always going to work out … painting helped me get around all of it,” Blagg said.
SE student Rashaun Robinson attended the opening reception for the exhibit Nov. 1 and said he was immediately drawn to Blagg’s piece.
“You look at this piece and think you’ve been there before,” Robinson said.
The Fort Worth Art Collectives 1990-2015: Artspace 111 Collective exhibit features more of Blagg’s work along with the work of another local artist, Cindi Holt, who also paints familiar places.
Holt’s works often bend the laws of physics, which is apparent in her piece Putti, which is on display in the exhibit.
The painting features bright colors, incorporates a table facing an impossible direction and a small orange and red fire in the distance.
“This is a woman’s house in Fort Worth and it’s a very famous house,” Holt said, “I did probably three or four paintings in her home.”
Holt said many of her pieces have a spiritual quality to them and Putti is no exception. The inclusion of fire was purposeful as was the strange appearance of the table, she said.
The piece of furniture is bent in a way that would make it slanted to the side in reality, but in this painting it allows the viewer to see the elaborate green and blue tablecloth which Holt has painted.
The putto, a statue representing a cherub, wasn’t even on the table it was painted on, she said.
However, she took creative licensing in favor of creating a more captivating piece with the titular putto at its center.
Blagg and Holt both strive to depict the beauty in everyday places in their work, whether it’s a street corner in the dead of night or the brightly lit kitchen of a home in Fort Worth.
Students, faculty and staff can view the exhibit during regular campus hours now through Dec. 7 in Art Corridor II on SE Campus.
For more information, contact Christopher Blay at christopher.blay@tccd.edu or 817-515-3406.
