Current Exhibition
Honoria Starbuck, When Zen Meets Chicken
Closes Saturday, February 7, 2026
Gallery hours
Saturday, January 10, 11am-3pm
Saturday, January 17, 11am-3pm
Saturday, January 24, 11am-3pm
Saturday, January 31, 11am-3pm
Friday, February 6, 6–9pm – Artist’s Reception
Saturday, February 7, 11am-3pm – Last Look
Artist’s Statement
What happens when Zen meets Chicken?
Beyond playful chaos, what unexpected insights do these calligraphic creatures impart about creativity?
Spellerberg Projects presents the work of Honoria Starbuck, a professor in the Art and Entertainment Technologies Department at The University of Texas, whose background includes an interdisciplinary PhD in Fine Arts, Communications, and Education. Honoria’s influences range from ancient cave art to the contemporary mail art network, as well as calligraphic gesture drawing.
Honoria’s artistic practice involves ink and paint as a meditative expression. Closely related to her seventeen-year practice of Tai Chi, her art process allows for the abstraction of action painting, the flowing quality of Emil Nolde’s flowers, the dynamics of Gutai, the absurdity of Dada, and the diffusion of ink by Japanese and Chinese artists to emerge. Through this meditative approach, creativity takes its shape on the page.
Honoria’s overarching theme is “flow.” This flow connects the molecules of pigment into patterns on the pages, and intellectual themes move from one individual artwork into the next. The Zen Chicken theme has a current of humor and flexibility, as the rooster engages in various entanglements with exuberant creative flow.
About the Artist
Honoria Starbuck, a native of Key Biscayne, Florida, developed an early affinity for art by playing with paint alongside her uncle, artist and architect James McGibbon Brown. Later, her introduction to the art world began by selling postcards in the swirly atrium of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, a job that still provides treasured memories of daily art immersion.
Academic pursuits at the University of Texas led to an interdisciplinary PhD in Fine Arts, Communications, and Education, encompassing studies in art, new media, non-profit business, curriculum and instruction, and art history. In addition, Honoria is an alumna of the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory.
As an active Mail Artist in the international Correspondence Art Network, Honoria’s work has been featured in over 1100 exhibitions globally, including twice at the Venice Biennale. Her 2003 dissertation, a participant-observer study, investigates the Internet’s influence on the Mail Art Network. Inspired by early Internet communities, she ventured beyond the postal system by creating the first Internet Opera in 1995, an innovation recognized by the Global Bangemann Challenge in Stockholm. Today, Honoria’s Zen Chicken series exists in both traditional art and pixel art modes simultaneously.
Honoria contributes her perspectives on creativity as a professor in the Art and Entertainment Technologies Department at The University of Texas at Austin. Her courses, including Foundations, Color Literacy, Visual Storytelling, and Portfolio, reflect her commitment to innovative educational practices in the arts.
Curator’s Statement
Spellerberg Projects opened on January 16, 2016, with Honoria Starbuck’s exhibition Flaneuse. This month, we celebrate our 10th anniversary by welcoming her back for our current show. Throughout 2026, we are excited to present work by artists who have been part of our journey, alongside new faces. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the people of Lockhart for embracing us, and we are delighted to see this community of artists and galleries flourish. Please join us on First Friday, February 6, to celebrate this milestone.
