Audiences are invited to be among the first to experience Yeager’s new wave of geometric force and total abstraction in liminal.
Texas A&M College of Architecture’s Wright Gallery is proud to announce 2019 season with the opening of liminal – a pivotal exhibition from Austin-based artist Sydney Yeager. In liminal, Yeager introduces a surprise counterpoint to her signature style of luscious brushwork – the recent incorporation of hard-edged fragments that serve as welcomed intruders to her work. liminal will be unveiled in 2019 on Jan. 14, and celebrate with an opening reception on Jan. 23 from 4 to 6pm. Guests can attend a special walkthrough with Yeager, exploring liminal through the eyes of the artists on Jan. 23 from 11am to 12pm. The opening reception, walkthrough, and duration of the exhibition are free and open to the public, running through Feb. 15.
Referred to in Slightlines Magazine as “the painter’s painter,” Yeager has spent the last three decades of her career building an ever-growing, somewhat malleable portfolio of work. On more than one occasion, Yeager has been inspired by a question from a viewer or student that prompted her to rethink some of her techniques. Her interest in fragments, however, has remained a constant. The solo exhibition will feature large-scale abstract paintings that offer a collusion between fluid lines and the brute force of geometric shapes, a tangle of shifting space that begins to imply a narrative – one that’s indicative of Yeager’s ability to adapt her work, decades into her career.
When asked about her new found approach to liminal, Yeager explained, “Working this way is consistent with my interest in motion and transitory forms, as each brush mark holds the possibility of altering the painting entirely. Together, the oppositional forms express a sense of imminent change. These forms are in a state of flux. A word that I think describes the condition implied by this work is “liminal”. I like the sound of the word, and I think it is as close as I can come to describing what I want to express.”
Traditionally, Yeager’s work has adhered to a style, laying heavy brush marks onto a linen canvas that is either raw or lightly touched with a wash of color. This body of work’s method holds little opportunity for revision, and requires a willingness to take on what is immediately given – border-lining the edge of chaos. The results of Yeager’s work are, by definition, liminal – occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold; relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
Texas A&M’s Wright Gallery looks forward to featuring Yeager’s work as their first exhibition of 2019. In regard to liminal, the gallery encourages viewers to observe concisely at the constant motion found within her work. When asked about the significance of the exhibition, former Texas A&M Professor of Visualization and Wright Gallery curator Karen Hillier said, “The immediacy found in the large scale paintings recalls dynamic patterns in nature, especially those of flocking – birds, twisting and turning, or a field of wheat blowing in the wind. We are so very fortunate to be able to showcase such mature and powerful work.”
About Sydney Yeager Sydney Yeager is a native Texan who lives in Austin and works at her studio in Elgin. Known as a “painter’s painter,” she has exhibited widely in the state of Texas. Her work is included in several museum collections, including the Blanton Museum of Art, The El Paso Museum of Art, the Tyler Museum of Art, and the Art Museum of South Texas. Additionally, her work is represented in many corporate and private collections. Little Mysteries an exhibition generated by Clint Willour of the Galveston Arts Center, toured the state in 2003 and 2004, traveling to The Grace Museum, Abilene, Tyler Museum of Art , The Gallery at U.T. Arlington, and The Jones Center, Austin (now the Contemporary Austin).
In 1996, her work was the focus of a one person exhibit titled Art in Process; Body/Language at the Austin Museum of Art. Also in 1996, she was awarded a Mid-America Arts Alliance Grant, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, in the field of Painting and Works on Paper. Several exhibitions at nonprofit institutions have featured Yeager’s work in either group or two person exhibitions, i.e. Amarillo Museum of Art, Galveston Museum of Art, The Glassel School, Women and Their Work, and D Arts Center for Visual Arts, Dallas. Currently Yeager’s work is represented by Laura Rathe Fine Art in Houston and Dallas, and by Gallery Shoal Creek in Austin.
About the Wright Gallery The College of Architecture's Wright Gallery is located on the second floor of the Langford Architecture Center's Building A on the Texas A&M College Station campus. The gallery is dedicated to showcasing the visual arts with a commitment to honoring diversity in all its forms; providing a venue for emerging and established artists, architects and designers of local, regional, national, and international acclaim; featuring works by women artists and artists from other underrepresented groups, artists whose works promote dialogue on topics of social and cultural importance, and artists whose work challenges conventional art practice; and serving as a center for campus and community visual arts engagement, education, and enjoyment.
The gallery's 2008 renovation was made possible by a generous gift from Jim Wright, a retired senior partner with Page Sutherland Page who earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Texas A&M in 1954, and his wife Mary.
