Gallery hours
Saturday July 15, 11am-3pm
Saturday July 22, 11am-3pm
Saturday July 29, 11am-3pm
Friday, August 4, 6–9pm – Artist’s Reception
Saturday August 5, 11am-3pm – Last Look
Exhibition handout
Michael Villarreal received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX, and a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Nebraska. He has exhibited in solo exhibitions at ACA Gallery at Angelina College in Lufkin, TX; Art Palace Contemporary Art Gallery, Houston, TX; and Project Project, Omaha, NE. He’s been in numerous group exhibitions at galleries such as The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE; Undercurrent in Brooklyn, NY; DATELINE in Denver, CO; Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX; Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, NE, and LA Artcore: Brewery Annex Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. His work has been featured in several publications such as Huffington Post, New American Paintings, and Art Maze Magazine. In 2019, he was a recipient of the Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. Influenced by personal photos, old and new, Villarreal’s work becomes a repository of memory, time, place, and self. Using a combination of painting, sculpture, and installation, his work makes connections between materiality and the recollection and re-interpretation of past and present experiences. Villarreal currently lives in San Marcos, TX, and teaches at Texas State University.
On June 17, 2023, the vibrant colors of diversity and celebration were in full bloom at Luna Gardens as the Lockhart Pride Fest took place.
Spellerberg Projects, a stalwart supporter of the arts and equality, proudly sponsored the event. Expressing our commitment to bringing forth underrepresented voices, we harnessed the power of art as an instrument for social change.
This year, we set up a display featuring the work of artists Andrea Wallace and Sam Thompson, adapted from Drag Nest, their previous installation at the Masur Gallery. Wallace and Thompson’s work is a bold exploration of queer culture, conveying its audacious glamour but also its inherent defiance and resilience.
Gallery hours
Saturday June 10, 11am-3pm
Saturday June 17, 11am-3pm
Saturday June 24, 11am-3pm
Saturday July 30, 11am-3pm
Friday, July 7, 6–9pm – Artist’s Reception
Saturday July 8, 11am-3pm – Last Look
Exhibition handout
Artist’s Statement
Her hair was gold, touching feelings, but she had to lose her soul to be seen, the way he is. She doesn’t think; her lips are a sweet surprise, her cold hands decidedly decaying. She only had to do it, old news. The results are always perfect, but the whole expanse cannot be seen. She will lay him on a throne, invented at his birth and sprinkled with reluctance. He formulated her infinity and whittled her title down to, “a woman.”
About the Artist
Hollie Brown currently lives in Abilene, Texas. She is a member of the Center for Contemporary Arts and teaches at McMurry University. She received her M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts from the University of California, Riverside in 2017. Brown also runs Little Shop of Hollies, a “tiny” business she started in 2020.
Gallery Hours
Saturday April 15, 11am-3pm
Saturday April 22, 11am-3pm
Saturday April 29, 11am-3pm
Closing Reception Friday, May 5, 6-9pm
Saturday May 6, 11am-3pm
Coordinated by Gracie Evers
Sam Foster is originally from Lawrence KS, Sam Foster got his BFA from The Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) IN 2012, Studying Painting and Experimental Film. Sam currently resides in Lockhart Tx and is getting his MFA along with his partner and co studio mate Jennifer Moore at Maharishi International University in Fairfield IA in the Low Residency program. Sam makes paintings that abstract / combine forms and images, often drawing from the figure and mundane objects like fans to represent a new synthesis of meaning and symbolism. Sam has been a part of Spellerberg Projects for the past year and loves living so close to the studio.
Jennifer Moore is an artist living and working in Lockhart, Texas. Her preferred materials are household objects, broken electronics and papier-mâché which she applies to her work centering around themes of body and home. She received her BFA from Texas State University in 2018 and is currently an MFA candidate at Maharishi International University.
Andrea Wallace is a photographer and installation artist in Lockhart, TX. She is inspired by music, beauty, fashion, people, nature, design and the performing arts. Her work reveals her broad appreciation for others artistic talents as artists and performers are frequent subjects. Andrea studied art and photography at Sam Houston State University and interior design at the Art Institute of Houston. Born five years too soon, her formal education was quickly made obsolete by the dawning digital era. Many years of self re-education ensued and she is a proud perpetual student of the digital and physical arts.
Maya Endsley is a multimedia artist getting her BFA in drawing along with a minor in psychology. Her work focuses on art as therapy and feminist issues. She works mostly with pen and ink but also uses a variety of mediums. Her work has been showcased in the Student Juries Exhibition at Texas State Galleries, and she is a part of the 5th Wave Artist collective. Born in Dallas, Texas, Maya currently resides in San Marcos, Texas and attends Texas State University.
Gracie Evers is an artist working primarily in drawing and painting. She has been making art throughout her life with works ranging from realism to abstraction, and now creates with a primary emphasis on figurative and symbolic elements drawn from Biblical texts. Born in Indiana and growing up in Houston, Texas, Gracie currently lives in San Marcos, Texas where she is working towards her BFA in Studio Art from Texas State University.
Gallery hours
Saturday Mar 11, 11am-3pm
Saturday Mar 18, 11am-3pm
Saturday Mar 25, 11am-3pm
Friday, Mar 31, 6–9pm
Saturday Apr 1, 11am-6pm (Lockhart Sip & Stroll festival)
Curated by Raul Rene Gonzalez
Artwork list
Audio Stories
The visual pieces in this exhibit are accompanied by audio. Women whose portraits are featured share stories about their lives and how they feel about dance and movement. Featuring spoken word by Andrea Vocab Sanderson and selected clips from Glory Jones, Shelby Hilliard, Nanako Pastol, Sarah (Foxsar) Fox and Andrea Vocab.
Listen to the 8 minute audio here:
Longer versions of the stories can be accessed on Soundcloud.
Artist’s Statement
The Glorious Way She Moves explores the fullness and depth of the female form from youthful innocence to glorious maturity. As a multi-racial and cultural artist, I strive to address inaccurate, misplaced labels put upon cultures, race and the feminine gender. These interpretive portraits illustrate the exuberance and individuality of each muse I celebrate and emphasize the remarkable features and characteristics of women in every phase of womanhood. Through their poise and spirit, they pay homage to the legacy of generations of women who came before them. Symbolically, these portraits exemplify the self-esteem women exude as they move through their lives and the world.
The large scale format brings the women I portray into a magnified view that recognizes their magnificence as multi-faceted human beings. In my process, I video record each woman dancing, then jump to the film’s individual frames, using them to help me expose and capture my subjects’ unique character and individuality. During their dance, I specifically look for physical and expressive nuances my subjects demonstrate, then use these individual signature movements to reveal each subjects’ aesthetic. By doing this I experience a connection to their beauty without stereotyping. It is that connection I share in my work.
About the Artist
Barbara Felix is a San Antonio native and contemporary figurative artist. She received her BFA in Graphic Communication at Texas State University in 1991, where her TSU coursework fired her love of the human figure and inspired her long pursuit to work as an artist. Felix began taking community classes at the Southwest School of Art, San Antonio in 2006. After receiving a Best of Show award in 2007 at the All-Student exhibition she began a more dedicated pursuit of art, receiving a Certificate in Drawing, Painting and Printmaking in 2013.
Felix’ ongoing series of works include: Bailando con Mi Misma (Dancing with My Self), The Color of Women, and The Glorious Way She Moves. Body movement, body language, facial expression and relationships and identity are common themes she explores in her work. She received a 1st place award at the Round Rock Arts [Re]Imagine Exhibition in 2019 for her portrait of Thelma and Barbara, and recently her work was showcased in The Billboard Creative’s We the People billboard exhibition in Los Angeles, CA. She is self-taught in animation, video and audio editing. Her animation and performance videos have been screened in festivals and exhibitions across the United States and internationally.
Felix is actively engaged in her community, as an executive board member of Contemporary Art Month (CAM); and an active member of both San Antonio Ethnic Art Society (SAEAS) and Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association (GAGA). She has curated exhibitions for the Bijou Cinema Theater (2017-2019), Slab Cinema Arthouse (2022), and the City of San Antonio Department of Art & Culture (2022/2023). She has recently early retired from corporate graphic design in 2022, to pursue her artistic passions full time.
Artist’s Website
Gallery hours
Saturday Feb 11, 11am-3pm
Saturday Feb 18, 11am-3pm
Saturday Feb 25, 11am-3pm
Friday, Mar 3, 6–9pm
Saturday Mar 4, 11am-3pm
Artwork List
Artist’s Statement
As someone that has a career that allows me to spend time nurturing my children, I know the moments I share with them are precious and extremely valuable, especially as a father. This exhibition is about sharing those moments, between parent and child, between father and daughters. I spent several years after grad school as the “stay-at-home-parent” in our household, while simultaneously balancing my art career. After a few years of creating paintings and drawings about my own experiences, I began to collaborate with other working artists, sharing a glimpse into their world as parents.
This exhibition features select works from my Doing Werk and Artists-Parents series. The Artists-Parents series was funded by a 2020 Artist Grant from the Luminaria Artist Foundation and the City of San Antonio.
About the Artist
Raul Rene Gonzalez is a multidisciplinary artist who incorporates an astonishingly wide range of mediums and methods in his paintings, drawings, sculptures, clothing, murals, installations, live and recorded dance and other performance-based work. Largely autobiographical in nature, his work explores topics such as fatherhood, gender roles, labor, identity, pop culture, science, and abstraction.
A prolific creator who finds inspiration anywhere and everywhere, Gonzalez is known by art critics, curators, and friends alike for his unwavering energy, ambition and experimentation that has led to the creation of several hundred unique works over the past decade. He truly lives his motto: “Werk. Hustle. Sleep. Repeat.”
Gonzalez earned his M.F.A. in Art from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a B.F.A., Magna Cum Laude in Painting from the University of Houston. Raul is the Director, Curator, and Resident Artist at Clamp Light Studios & Gallery, an artist-run space in San Antonio where the artist currently lives with his wife and two daughters. Raul also manages WerkHouse SA, a short-term rental property.
A Houston native now based in San Antonio, Texas, Gonzalez’ experiences living in two of the biggest metropolitan cities in the country influence nearly all his bodies of work—from detailed urban landscapes that pay homage to the workers who build and maintain our cities, to large-scale duct-tape and cardboard installations, to his paintings that document key features of San Antonio’s musical history displayed permanently in San Antonio’s City Hall.
Gonzalez has been featured in New American Paintings No. 162: West Issue, Harper’s Magazine, Southwest Contemporary Vol. 5: Collectivity & Collaboration, Create! Magazine, Glasstire, The San Antonio Express News, La Prensa Texas, Spectrum News, The SA Current, The Austin Chronicle, and Whataburger.
Gonzalez’s work has been exhibited and featured widely throughout Texas and the United States. Since 2012, his work has been added to permanent collections such as the National Mexican Museum of Art (Chicago), the National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum (Albuquerque), Benson Latin American Collection (Austin), Mexic-Arte Museum (Austin), the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio), the University of Texas at San Antonio, Capital One Financial Services (Plano and San Antonio), the City of San Antonio, The Woodlands High School Art Trust, Artes de la Rosa (Fort Worth), the Whataburger Museum of Art, and The San Antonio Art League & Museum.
Artist’s Website
Gallery hours
Saturday Jan 14, 11am-3pm
Saturday Jan 21, 11am-3pm
Saturday Jan 28, 11am-3pm
Friday, Feb 3, 6–9pm
Saturday Feb 4, 11am-3pm
Curated by Raul Rene Gonzalez
Artist’s Statement
As an artist, I am constantly seeking clarity and understanding within myself and the world around me. These moments can be fleeting, but they offer a glimpse into a deeper understanding of myself and the world around me.
In my work, I often use wood as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of time. Wood is a natural material constantly changing and shifting, representing the impermanence of our existence. By contrasting wood with cement and steel, I can create a sense of stability and permanence, even as the wood continues to change and decay.
Through my sculptures, I aim to capture the ephemeral nature of these moments of clarity and the sense of impermanence that comes with them. By depicting the interplay between the natural and artificial, I hope to create a visual metaphor for the ever-evolving process of self-discovery and growth.
About the Artist
I am an emerging Artist based in San Antonio, TX, born in 1998. I am a self-taught wood sculptor, and since 2016 I have been working with artists in their sculpture and fabrication studios. My work is expressed through multimedia abstract figurative sculptures using a variety of mediums such as wood, steel, and cement. I find using various raw materials helps to provide unique and unexpected challenges that help feed into a conceptual blueprint for my work.
Artist’s Instagram
Gallery hours
Saturday Dec 10, 11am-3pm
Saturday Dec 17, 11am-3pm
Friday, Jan 6, 6–9pm
Saturday Jan 7, 11am-3pm
Curated by Raul Rene Gonzalez
Kim Bishop is a nationally exhibited artist who has been working from her San Antonio, Texas, based studio for the past 20 years. Bishop offers a cross sectional view of the effects of experience on memory, dreams, and repetitive ritual within an interdisciplinary structure.
Here Bishop reinvents her self-portrait of navigating, as a woman, the social condition of her time in her constant endeavor to measure the standard that determines her worth through a variety of drawing processes. Her imagery focuses on the entanglement of body, time and movement to create a holistic self-portrait which carries a universal theme of quantum remembrance and the physical.
Closing reception Friday, December 2, 6–9pm.
For gallery hours and visit info, click here.
Curated by Raul Rene Gonzalez
About the Artist
Andrei Renteria is a multidisciplinary artist wandering about the U.S.-Mexico frontera. His experimental approach to material and research provides a powerful forum from which to investigate how to address and embody weighty subject matter (including torture and violence) beyond international borders. His work focuses on recurrences of discrimination, persecution, unlawful imprisonment and other human rights abuses along the region. Renteria earned his BFA from Sul Ross State University in 2010 and MFA at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2015.
Artist’s Statement
I envision myself as a reportage artist, who carries back stories and situations confronted along the U.S.-Mexico border, where I grew up. My approach to material is experimental, and incorporates drawing, painting, lithography, sculpture, assemblage and installation. I use these media as a powerful forum to investigate how to address and embody weighty subject matter beyond international borders.
I aim to induce a social collaborative experience with the viewer, referring to the relationship of the body to the object and the sense of exploitation or power. Ambitiously, I am trying to destabilize the border between artist, artwork, and audience—analogous to the socio-political border.
Recently, I’ve been trying to understand how participant observation can be used to understand and describe the set of contingencies played upon family members, who are desperate to find their missing loved ones. By forming collectives, they attempt to pressure the Mexican government into helping them investigate, locate, and excavate mass grave sites, maintained mostly by powerful drug cartels.
Closing reception Friday, November 4, 6–9pm.
For gallery hours and visit info, click here.
Curated by Raul Rene Gonzalez
About the Artist
Sara Corley Martinez was born in Frederick, Maryland in 1986. She received her MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. Sara has exhibited around the US with work in Baltimore, New York, Houston, and Cincinnati. After a break to have a child she was inspired to create work about the physical transformation and absurdly wonderful experience of motherhood. Sara was Director and Curator at the now closed Mantle Art Space and is currently a Resident Artist at Clamp Light Studios and Gallery in San Antonio Texas.
Artist’s Statement
This exhibition began with appropriating other artists’ work through the point of view of parenthood. I specifically was interested in Matthew Barney’s “Drawing Restraints” and the idea of art making as parallel to athletic practice. The artworld was interested in the obstacles and physical training he put himself through when compared to athletic practice but what about other forms of restraint? What about the “obstacles” that are children, being a mother, or issues having to do with an aging woman.
I decided to expand on my initial performance about the obstacles of being a mother and an artist, to other issues having to do with mothering and specifically a mother’s identity post baby. This post baby identity for me manifested as a midlife crisis of the best kind.
Throughout this exhibition you will see references to this second puberty mixed with that of mothering, tending to a home, and a second sexual awakening. All of these feelings manifested in my relationship to the objects surrounding me. This took me on a quest to find an identity not related to others, but grounded in my own autonomy as a matron. I am playing with many ideas of restraints and finding relationships with objects beyond mothering from colorful BDSM rope, to extension cords, to home fitness equipment, to heels, and to girdles. All of these self imposed restraints challenged me to figure out a way to talk about this new experience in my artwork, and overcoming those feelings of not belonging or even being ridiculed in my open sexuality as I become a middle aged mother. All of that confusion and chaos of my own insecurities are restraints for me to overcome as I get comfortable in my artistic practice.