Save the date. Event information to come.
Featuring guest Qiuchen Wu. Wu stewards SHANGHAI SEMINARY, a not-for-profit gallery located in the Bridgeport neighborhood, Chicago—the traditional unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations.
This project is funded in part by Austin UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.
Gallery hours
Saturday, October 11, 11am-3pm
Saturday, October 18, 11am-3pm
Saturday, October 25, 11am-3pm
Saturday, November 1, 11am-3pm
Friday, November 7, 6–9pm – Artist’s Reception
Saturday, November 8, 11am-3pm – Last Look
Artist’s Statement
My work explores ‘universal everyday living spaces’ using AI tools like Midjourney, DALL-E 2, and Adobe Firefly, which are neural networks that generate visuals from prompts like ‘vernacular living room.’ These AI-generated images are edited with Photoshop to create composite collages, blending AI collaboration with my artistic goals. These collages serve as blueprints for paintings, merging technology with personal narrative to capture both universal and personal perspectives.
The intimately scaled paintings of ambient interior spaces are dramatically lit by vibrant, yet limited, color palettes. These works, devoid of figures, create solitary environments that draw the viewer into moments of temporal displacement and quiet, found in the stillness of night and the nuanced light of dusk. Raised in a household where visibility often meant vulnerability, my pieces reflect a desire for peace and self-possession — spaces untouched by others, conflict, and self-doubt.
About the Artist
Alex Renbarger (b.1999) specializes in painting isolated interior scenes with intense lighting and vivid colors, based on AI-generated images. She received an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln after earning a BFA in studio art from Texas State University. Select exhibitions include the Graduate Juried Exhibition at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS; Smoke & Mirrors at the Medici Gallery in Lincoln, NE; UARK x UNL Exchange at Sugar Gallery in Fayetteville, AR; The Artist’s Studio at Spellerberg Projects Main St. Gallery in Lockhart, TX; Illusions of Reverie at Texas State Galleries in San Marcos, TX; and Here and There at Clamplight Gallery in San Antonio, TX.
The upstairs project space will be transformed into a musical instrument where the location in the room will determine what the performers and audience hear. The audience will move through the space in order to hear the instrument from their personal perspective as a piece of music is spontaneously developed through the interaction of the physical space, sine waves and pedalsteel guitar. The space will be tuned and actuated by Max Lorenzen.
Sine waves by Max Lorenzen
Bob Hoffnar will play pedalsteel
Guest Artist Aidan Berg
Doors 6:00pm
Prismatic Listening 7:00pm
About the Artists
Pedal steel guitarist Bob Hoffnar relocated to Austin from NYC in 2009 and has since become a major contributor to Austin’s cultural landscape. Originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, Hoffnar graduated from Purchase Conservatory of Music in 1998 with a BFA in Composition that included private studies with Richard Cameron Wolf. Further private studies included time with such musical luminaries as Lamonte Young, Pandit Pran Nath, and Ernest Tubb’s steel player Buddy Charleton. Bob currently runs Liminal Sound Series — a live concert performance series dedicated to the commissioning of new works and collaborations between visionary composers and Austin-based musicians and performers.
Max Lorenzen is an audio engineer in Lockhart, TX where he runs the mixing and mastering studio, Rare Ear. Originally from Summersville, West Virginia, he graduated from American University in 2009 with a BA in Audio Production. Since moving to Central Texas in 2013, Max has become a fixture in the Austin recording community. Engineering alongside producers Danny Reisch, Jim Eno, Steve Berlin, Chico Jones and Jason Chronis. His engineering, mixing, and mastering credits span across genres and include recordings by Brown Whörnet, Tele Novella, Rattlesnake Milk, The Octopus Project, Other Lives, Spoon, and Dirty Projectors.
This project is funded in part by Austin UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts.
Join us for our self-directed life drawing class! There will be a live model but no instructor. All levels of skill and experience are welcome. It’s a chance to sharpen your skills, connect with fellow artists, and enjoy a relaxed, creative evening.
Easels and chairs provided. The fee is $15 to pay the model. Please RSVP via the lockhartlifedrawing account on Instagram. Hosted by Marie Tobola.
Michael Villarreal is a visual artist based in Lytton Springs, TX. In 2013, Villarreal received a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX and a Master of Fine Arts in 2017 at the University of Nebraska. He has exhibited in solo exhibitions at Art Palace Contemporary Art Gallery, Houston, TX, and Project Project, Omaha, NE. He’s been in numerous group exhibitions including The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE, Undercurrent in Brooklyn, NY, DATELINE in Denver, CO, Barbara Davis Gallery in Houston, TX, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, and LA Artcore: Brewery Annex Gallery in 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. Villarreal currently teaches at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX and is a member of ICOSA Collective in Austin, TX.
Michael Menchaca earned their MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015, and their BFA from Texas State University in 2011, concentrating both degrees in Printmaking. Menchaca’s works are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.; U.S. Library of Congress, D.C.; The National Gallery of Art, D.C.; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; El Museo Del Barrio, NY; The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR; The San Antonio Museum of Art, TX; and RISD Museum, RI; among others. Exhibitions include the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; El Museo del Barrio, NY; The Davis Museum, MA; The Chrysler Museum of Art, VA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.; The Benton Museum of Art, CA; The Contemporary Austin, TX; The Lawndale Art Center, TX; The McNay Museum, TX; North Carolina Museum of Art, NC; and The Print Center New York, NY. They have been an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, ME; Vermont Studio Center, VT; the Wassaic Project, NY; the Segura Arts Studio at Notre Dame University, IN; the Serie Project at Coronado Studios, TX; The Studios at MASS MoCA, MA, and a fellow-in-residence at The Fine Arts Work Center, MA. They are one-half of the artist collective Dos Xicanx. In 2021, the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF), supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, awarded Menchaca the inaugural Latinx Artist Fellowship.
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.
Born in 1984 to an African American father and Mexican mother, Vollrath had a unique beginning with 11 siblings, a Mennonite background and a homeschool education.
She discovered her love of painting around the age of 8 and spent her free time exploring with the various art supplies her mother found at garage sales.
At the age of 15, Vollrath met the late Dr. Marilyn Daniels at an art opening. Upon seeing Vollrath’s portfolio, Dr. Daniels was amazed by the untrained, natural skill that was present in the work.
She immediately offered art tutelage to the quiet 15 year old. Credited to Dr. Daniels’ prodding and encouragement, Vollrath went on to receive her BFA from Howard University in 2011 and MFA from Texas Woman’s University in 2017.
Vollrath works primarily in oil paint and is currently focused on the sacred narratives. She is figuratively trained and began her early career as a portrait painter for hire. With her love of light, color and the figure, Vollrath tells familiar narratives of humankind’s eternal search for its connection to immortality.
Vollrath currently lives in Dallas with her husband and 2 daughters. She is a professor of art at Eastfield College.