In July of 2023 the UNT CoLab featured a wonderful community project full of Denton community participants entitled ‘square-d: A Community Exhibition benefiting the UNT Food Pantry.’ This exhibit helped the UNT food pantry by way of selling the art pieces for a minimum of a $25 donation towards keeping the pantry well stocked. Many if not almost all of the pieces sold and some even at a higher price than $25. The benefit for the pantry was a success in all ways. This great exhibit also brought the community together, across a range of all ages and from all kinds of different walks of life.
This article will show off each and every submitted piece to the exhibit and provide links to each artist’s socials and/or websites. Enjoy a look into the fantastic showcase from local Dentonites!
First, the four top featured pieces were from some of the most notable artists in the area.
John Bramblitt of Yellow Dog Art Bar (@yellowdogartbar) provided the electric looking piece ‘DJ Nights,’ painted in acrylics featuring a medium hair length woman wi. Bramblitt’s work is impressive and memorable. His style is so unique! The Yellow Dog Art Bar is his place of business and general hangout where artists are lining the walls on exhibit. Many different art, music, and spoken word events are held within the art bar. It is a happening place and very exciting part of the Denton community. I highly recommend checking it out sometime and snagging an art or seasonally themed beverage! It is located at 219 E Hickory St, Denton, TX, 76201. John Bramblitt is also a blind artist, and does a lot to support the disabled community, disabled youth, and the local arts community with many exciting events, workshops and appearances.
Michael Bales provided the fantastic deathly piece for the exhibit showing off his fondness for nature. Bales is a local tattoo artist running his private studio, True Leaf Studio, located in town. You can find all his awesome work at @michaelbalesart and MichaelBalesArt.com.
Dan Black is a very interesting artist who is multi-talented – working across spray-paint, acrylic, oil painting, layered panel installation and figure sculpture. He started spray painting in 2007 while pursuing a technical degree in aviation. After graduating he realized he loved art and painting so much more, and pursued self-education in the subject. Definitely a local artist worth following the work of! You can find him on instagram at @danblack_who and through his website danblack.work.
Paige Davidson is a Gainesville, TX based painters and potter, running a brick and mortar art gallery that is open Thurs-Sat. She shares her home with a feline studio assistant. In 2000, she received her B.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been shown in galleries nationally and internationally over the last 25 years. She has a fondness for the natural world in her vibrant works, with every paint stroke she shows a great reverence for the South’s great outdoors. I highly recommend giving her gallery a visit the next time you are in Gainesville. You can keep up with her work on instagram at @paigedavidsonstudio and paigedavidson.com.
The first group of paintings after the special guest artists started out with some fantastically whimsical and bright pieces. Let’s dive in;
Macy Belton is a local artist that attends the University of North Texas, graduating class upcoming of 2024 in Graphic Design & Business Marketing. She works in multiple styles but has a particular knack for the whimsical looking bright designs full of lots of humor. This armadillo piece is especially beautiful and fun to look at. Her Instagram has actually changed since the show, and is now located at @macybelton. You can find her portfolio of work hosted at beltondesign.myportfolio.com. I recommend keeping up with this incredible up and coming designer!
Rigatoni Garrido is a fantastic and bubbly local artist who graduated from The University of North Texas in 2018, focusing in Drawing & Painting and New Media Art. They have traveled the world and studied animation at Les Gobelins of Paris, France, a renowned animation studio bringing the brightest talents to the screen. They have also completed a master’s in Animation & Illustration from Cambridge’s School of Visual & Performing Arts located in the UK. Their work is heavily inspired by their international experiences and their love for cute aesthetics. You can hire them for some amazing work at rigatonigarrido.com and find all their other links at linktr.ee/PipaPeep. PipaPeep is the dog character they have designed that is widely popular, with over 30,000 followers on Instagram in love with the little pup, follow at @pipapeep. They contributed two paintings of PipaPeep to the show.
A lovely piece I was able to take home and call my own is titled ‘Epiphany’ by Mena Massey aka @parasitic.acidic (new handle compared to the one during the show) on Instagram. She is a fantastic artist who works with acrylic paint, leathercrafting, and printmaking. Her skills are vast and the styles she works in are very abstract and unique looking. She is an attendee of the UNT College of Visual Arts and Design. I absolutely adore this piece and it will be cherished for a long time.
The next set of paintings grouped up together included work from multiple talented artists. Chloe Starkey (@starkey.arts) on the top left corner hails from Nashville, TN nowadays but attended UNT’s College of Visual Art & Design previously. Her work features a unique style bringing much attention to enlarged eyeballs as a key aspect.
(A close up of Chloe Starkey’s enchanting eyes on the character painted for the exhibit.)
Rhiannon Laxait (@rhilaxx) (top right corner) painted a fantastic axolotl with a disco ball in it’s mouth swimming amid the water’s bubbles. This one was fun and whimsical. It is mixed media collage, featuring the fun addition of sequins to become the mirror ball effect.
April Enelly Galvan (@aprilenellystudio) (piece on the bottom left corner) is one of my favourite local artists who has a very enigmatic and nostalgic style about their work. They explore vivid imagery using automatism in order to emphasize the subconscious mind and explore the childlike tendencies in art making. They do lots of experimental work and are definitely worth following. Ranging from youthful work evoking happy memories to broad and vast landscapes beaming with vibrant colours of nature. You can find their work at enellyartist.wixsite.com/april-enelly.
They also were featured for this piece in The Ways Trees Hold Each Other: Community Zine #2 from The Petal Project, available locally at vendor events. Lastly, if you want to get involved in some local arts community events April has founded and currently still runs the Sketchbook Party event once a month. Follow @sketchbookparty_ for more info of when the next one will be! Hope to see you there!
Brooke Daly submitted the piece ‘Square Deconstructed’ that examined the construction of an interwoven cube / square object that is broken into pieces and re-arranged. It features wire and a destruction of the square shaped canvas too, with it looking mid-catastrophe, holding a chaotic energy to it. Spattering of white paint flecks amp up the energy considerably so in this interesting concept. To say it easily, Daly’s work definitely thought outside the box or “square” of the canvas provided. There was no online resources for this artist, so I believe they stick to privacy surrounding their work.
The third batch of paintings all together are impressive and evoke themes of nature in all three, two being waterways, one a creature’s sheddings, and one the earthen patterns of geodes.
The top left corner’s piece is by Mykala Bujacich, a local creative person who does not have social media presence to feature here. Focusing on their piece, the waterways are nice and bright and inviting in this nature centered world.
Sherilan Scoggins brings us a beautiful arrangement of colour and shape in the ‘Original Geode’ acrylic pouring. The way they were able to capture the layers of an earthen geode is marvelous.
‘Reflection of Sunlight on Water’ blew me away with how much you could feel the water and hear it too when gazing upon this piece of artwork. The strokes of the acrylic flow method in the water provide a nice direction to the rushing waters and provide movement. There is motion evoked in this and chaos that is beauty unbound in the waters of the river. I appreciate the play with lighting in this too. They worked with yellows and blues and kept them from turning too mucky green. That’s impressive. It feels like a warm Summer day by the creek or river. Definitely a favourite piece.
Here’s a video on acrylic flow painting, acrylic pouring, and fluid art I found as I became interested in the medium seeing these two side by side.
Finishing off this batch strong, Cindy Parker Defoore worked on this unique ‘Honey Locust’ piece in the top right corner made of all natural items.
It is textured heavily and is like a sweater with unique textiles and string hanging down. The honey locust pod is an incredible natural piece to display. I adored this piece. It was nice to look at and how unique it was as a 3-dimensional object.
The next batch contained two companion pieces by Christine Sanders: ‘Looking for the Silver Lining’ Left & Right, respectively. Both were approached with different textures, and styles of painting in each. The Left features a much more textured, rough paintbrush look that reminds me of the texture of denim slightly. The Right is much more blended and a more hyper-realistic style. Smooth.
Rachel Reagor provided a cool Narcissus piece, from Greek mythology he hails from. He lies in his abode admiring himself as per usual. The folding of the cloak/robes being worn is just very fun and appealing to the eye. The composition is nice too, set in his own little world. You can follow Rachel’s work at @mizuki_shinwa on Instagram.
A very impressive piece from this batch is the final one, #66 by Rileigh Pena (@rileighpena on Instagram) which literally reaches out to touch you
Rileigh’s work is phenomenal, this is made from paper mache. The construction of it is so great as it builds up towards you from the canvas. She is a metalsmithing student of UNT and has provided artwork for multiple UNT CoLAB exhibits including square-d and the Denton Comic Art Expo Exhibit. I highly recommend following her work!
The next two artists provided pieces part of a series that settled on orange tones for Susan Seaborn and Randall Jones’. They look so nice featured together in this display of all four pieces with Myriam Reynolds’ work, another artist who just so happened to feature a blue heavy orange/blue colour scheme too.
Susan Seaborn’s piece breathes a lot of life and give a comfortable, warm, friendly & inviting feeling when looking at the way Randy is depicted. They are clearly close friends and enjoy working together. Susan is depicted deep in her work process by Randall Jones in his piece and she has wild hair and a storied look about her. She is dedicated to her craft. You can follow Susan’s work at @susandtx (also susanseaborn.com) and Randall’s at @randalljonesart on Instagram (also randalljonesart.com.)
Myriam Reynolds has two ‘Untitled’ pieces here that are abstract and symbolic. I appreciate the colours used that are complementary and do well to bring us into various rooms with figures. The top one reminds me of visiting an art museum, and the bottom one is almost evoking a tarot card type of image – maybe a 3 of something. Just some thoughts on these. The compositions are appealing in both with the arrangement of shapes. I wonder what it all might mean? Wondering is half the appeal to them. You can follow Myriam’s work at @myriammontejoreynolds on Instagram.
This next set is all nature themed and very appealing all together. All have some sort of 3-dimensionality to them. Right away I’m drawn to the blocky brush strokes of Perry Hamilton’s ‘Shallow Water’ piece done in Oil paints.
The bottom right corner features phrases said by Leslie Knope from Parks & Recreation, hand embroidered onto the canvas where fabric was overlaid on it. This was super unique! You can find Kara Belt’s work at @crackerjackgoods on Instagram.
The top right features a 3-dimensional piece by Briana Henville-Shannon (@b_bbriiii on Instagram) titled ‘The Anthropologist.’ A heart filled with love for the natural world is depicted on the canvas literally coming to life with butterflies and plant matter growing out of it. Briana’s work is truly fun! The definition of ‘Heart’ here and her own words underneath truly bring together the theme of the piece:
At the bottom left corner, Flora Trinh (@floradoodlesalot) provided a beautiful piece that looks like cut pieces of a whimsical little world pasted together upon the nice texture of the room in ‘Untitled.’ Each piece is created by her hands.
The happy animals are my favourite part. There is even embroidered parts of this piece, where she stuck needle and thread right through the canvas itself. Truly awesome!
Preston Hambric’s ‘Ha Solo’ collage piece in the top left corner struck me first out of the next group! It sports a funky look and nostalgic characters from old Nintendo Power magazines and other game memorabilia. Pieces of my childhood on display. What a joy to behold!
The next series of pieces that ‘Ha Solo’ was a part of had a lot to do with games and colourful collage work full of youth-like joy and experimentation.
Armren Lindaya’s piece ‘In My Mind’ bring a fun look into the recesses of the creator’s mind and their interests. The composition is appealing and the collage-like arrangement of the topics inside the mind fits well beside the neighboring pieces. You can follow their work at @k.a.l.studios on Instagram.
The bottom right corner features a vibrantly messy look into ‘A Chaotic Life’ by Ashley Adams, found at @art.piece.of.mind on Instagram. I absolutely ADORE this piece, especially the goopy drippy skull face made of rainbow drip paint. The layering of the arms/hands together also is surreal, and makes my brain happy to see. Great energy overall with this one.
Rose H. Finishes us off strong with ‘Invent Design Create Think,’ a mixed media piece featuring a patchwork-like colour patterning to the hand shape drawn beside a depiction of the creator’s self. All of the pieces we pick up, be it through experiences, dreams, or fate, make up who we are inside.
This batch of paintings provides a heartwarming approach to the project with cute or cool subject matter. Marie Goodwyn starts us off with a mixed media piece that speaks some truth: “Life is too short to spend it fighting!” featuring an image showing a unification of people together atop the massive globe among the stars and near a blazing Sun. The stars are also joined by cute hearts to really wrap this piece up.
Below it, Iris Geringer brings us the awesome “Kangaroo Galactica” which shows some great colour mixing and blending. This piece also has great use of negative space and white paint over top the colour to create a silhouette of a kangaroo in the nebula filled galaxy. Great work Iris!
Sydney Roberts pushes us beyond our limits of comfort with a piece all about seeing eye to eye and going soul searching as the title suggests. The colour and shape language here is great and unique, I love the detail of the eyelashes brushed up against each other and the drips from the pupil and cornea of both eyeballs. Superb piece – adorned with yarn crocheted all the way around!
Lastly from this group a great and glittery piece from Laura Markium, simply ‘Untitled.’ The artist depicted in the painting is blocked in with graphical elements making up their silhouette. The outer edge of the character’s silhouette is duplicated in different colours moving outward. I love this one a lot because I love the simplicity of the shape language but also how the pure white is starkly contrasted with the vibrant solid colours. It was made with mixed mediums too.
Toast Tiensvold (@thetoastypoet on Instagram) provided a stylized self-portrait of himself that shows off his awesome long green mohawk off to one side. The blocky style is great, capturing the planar value of the facial structure and his hair. There is nice vibrant skintones that dip into the reds which complement his green hair. I love his energy depicted so much!! Toast has displayed his artwork in various areas of Denton including but not limited to Barnhart’s Barbershop, The Gold Room of Golden Boy Coffee, Yellow Dog Art Bar, and more! Catch him at Graveyard Shift Denton (@graveyardshiftdenton), a local gathering of Denton’s goth community in The Gold Room of Golden Boy Coffee!
A beautiful and overwhelmingly green piece featuring an eye was painted by Sophia Calvert using acrylic paint. There is a nice texture across the background of the piece, almost like this eye could be of some sort of green scaly creature’s. Added symbols create some imagery that might suggest some meaning, or could be interpreted as tattoos too. This is her first piece out of two submitted that I got to see in the event. More of her work will be featured later on.
Brooke Daly’s piece is extremely unique, using a photo of Denton, TX’s map and applying acrylic flow over top of the painting. I wish I could see the process of this piece being made. It came out spectacular. Entitled ‘Be the Change’, it gives me a feeling of shaking things up in the city’s community by going against the status quo and typical structures set in place with all their limits. Denton fosters a lot of great minds that want to work towards a better city and world for all people, so a piece like this reminds me that it’s worth it to speak up for what is right in the world and in our Denton community. The change is beautiful to behold.
Now bringing us to our next batch of paintings, these ones all share a sort of midnight colour scheme – reds and navy blues. Charlotte Jochetz (found on Instagram as @cmj_artsandstuff) introduces us to ‘Madness’ (top left corner) – an acrylic pour piece entering the chaos of an unhinged mind. The stark contrast of black + white + blue + red is striking and reminds me of the turbulent ways our brains are capable of working when under great stress.
Isabella Viola, (top right corner) paints us a dreamy cityscape with a young Edmond looking over their world. Creatures of imagination spring up and forth around them, and fantasy plants grow strong on the balcony they stand upon. All acrylic, this piece is dreamy! She had an Instagram previously but has since the show changed names and I was unable to find her online. Her work was nice though!
Marcy Lilley provided a heartwarming look at the ‘First Bloom’ of Spring. Painted lovingly in deep passionate reds, it sits on a dark and contrasting navy backdrop. The coolness of the deep navy tones fall backwards while the warmth of the petals spring the flower forward in a lively manner. You can find Marcy’s work at @chillilley on Instagram.
Bayleigh Dyer is our last piece of this group, finishing us off with some fantastic paper cut outs of her own drawings pasted on a painted canvas that looks tie-dye. This unique piece was beautiful and I regret not taking this one home when I could! ‘The Lady’s Favor and a Heavenly Wager’ blew me away.
Another look at the piece, close-up to see the detailing of the paper cutting up against the colourful background.
This group is fantastic and lots of red-orange and blue echoed throughout all four pieces. Conner Belt starts us off in the top left corner with ‘A Cactus and His Amigo,’ a small human skull in the desert. The sun is bright red and far off in the sky behind some clouds that peak over the top of tall plateaus. The vector-like graphic quality of this painting is superb – a nice clean-cut style employing simplistic shapes. It is incredibly appealing to the eye. You can find Conner’s work at @connerbelt on Instagram.
‘CHat’ by HB Hutzell is so unique and loveable. A great style, it breathes life into the little orange feline in contrast to the blue background behind it.
Nicki Young’s ‘Intuition (Red)’ in the bottom left corner using acrylic paint and beads is very impressive. It plays with negative and positive space in a cool and lively way. The intricacies of the cavern-like structure is very nice to look at. You can find Nicki’s work at @nickiyoungart on Instagram.
Gus Geringer brings us ‘Army’ featuring a cool tank rolling forward with a cannon so big it goes out of frame to finish off this group’s artwork. It is unique and shows us a neat way to depict a tank. It was done with acrylic paint.
Paul Greco (@pgrecoart on Instagram) kicks off this next set of food related and/or yellow paintings with his ‘Feed Me’ mixed media piece. It features a young child covered in an absolute mess from attempting to feed himself! The style is so cute, and the red and yellow of his illustration goes really well with the yellow and red colour blocking done with paper cuttings surrounding him in the composition.
Cher Musico provided a quirky and fun piece featuring a close up of the Spam Tocino package design. “The perfect blend of sweet & meaty” it says online about the product, the adoration for it is clear here! I love this piece a lot, especially the paint strokes you can see visible in the meat rendering. Perfect pop art!
Jackson Gust brought us a very cool lava river, with two plateaus sticking out and a Full Moon up above. The layering of the paint is very nice in this piece, creating some texture! It was painted with acrylics.
Chris Brock (found at @chrisbrockphotos on Instagram) is a digital image creator and works in various mediums typically with photography as well as digital artwork. This piece featured some unique mustard containers found by chance at the store, ‘Art of the Burger’ provides a sort of pop art appeal to the repeating image with only some of them disturbed by the art of the burger limited edition bottles. It creates a repetitive imagery that, when broken up by the ‘art’ ones, creates a level of interest that brings our eyes to it. That disturbance of the rhythm is what we like as viewers!
The next set of paintings feature a gray scale / multicolour theme going on with them in some way or another. This set is great. Starting off in the top left corner, we have Jackie Demontmollin’s ‘Mom and Yubin.’ This amazing piece is done with acrylic paint and the suminagashi art form: an ancient art of Japanese marbling. This marbling technique was practiced in Japan as early as the 12th century. It means “ink floating” and delicate swirled patterns are produced on a piece of paper when colours of ink or paint were floated on the surface of water. The artist typically drops circles of black or blue ink or paint into the water, and blowing on the surface of the water they can create smoke-like patterns. These outcomes in particular are incredible. I love seeing the depiction of two different peoples’ energy in each square.
Learn about the history of suminagashi here .
Check out this great video by Apartment Therapy all about suminagashi if you would like to learn more about it and see the amazing process for yourself:
‘Finding Inspiration’ by Ella Short is our next piece, showing us a cute cartoony styled character with a fluffy rainbow headphones set on her head. She listens to music and a slight glow is emitting off of her, showing how the music provides inspiration for her work. Great and cute piece! It was done with acrylic paint and markers.
Mandy Metts provided the highly textured and 3-dimensional piece titled ‘Everyday.’ It features a white lifted section amid a solid black shimmery canvas. That portion is filled with a rainbow of translucent tidbits and little jewels, beads, things, glass, and other shiny found materials. This was one of my absolute favourite pieces of the entire show. Find all of Mandy’s work at @mandymettsmakes on Instagram! Mandy is a unique artist who is an art teacher turned cookie maker and now a Denton based merch creator! She sells awesome pins of unique Denton things and also other merch based on the lore of our great city.
The final piece of this awesomely colourful batch is one that I was lucky enough to take home – ‘Burst’! It was made using acrylic paint and torn canvas paper laid out into a beautiful pattern! Ann-Marie Jeremaissen is an artist for fun and creates LOTS of interesting and fantastically textured, patterned, and mesmerizing acrylic pieces. Her techniques are impressive with various ways of applying paint in repeating patterns, and applying torn or cut canvas paper into unique repetitive shapes. The effect of these visuals creates a fun and soothing experience when seeing them. I would kill for a whole wallpaper produced by her!!! It would be amazing to cover the whole walls of a room. Follow her work at @artsy_annj on Instagram!!
This group of paintings all share a bright magenta / pink colours between them. Bryan Bigley’s piece starts this group off using Titanium White, Gold, Naples, Yellow Hue, Permanent Light Blue, and Medium Magenta to create a scribbly mass of energy in visual form. Oil paints were used to create this piece!
Tesa Morin’s ‘The Homecoming’ uses acrylic paint, fabric, and watercolour to create a vast expanse of morning sky with the shadowy bird upon a wall dimly lit. I love how we are transported into this world created by Tesa, it imparts such a warm feeling. You can find her work at @tesamorin. You can find a better snapshot of her great piece to show the fabric overlay creating a fence look here on her Instagram post:
Our next piece featured is by Krissi Oden, featuring a rather scene-esque beating heart painted with greens, purples, and pinks, on a pink and yellow striped background with crows and other birds flying nearby. This would make a great album cover for an emo band! Krissi’s work is bright and abstract, with a distinct punk sensibility to it. You can follow Krissi’s work at @krissiodenart on Instagram!
The final piece of this grouping is a fantastically complicated and wild pattern-filled painting done with acrylics. It was painted by Alecia Lanuto (nkluesive)! Titled ‘IAMCONFIDENCE9’ there is so much chaotic and whimsical energy put forth in this piece that beams with the confidence suggested in the title. Just seeing this makes me happy to be alive to do so. You can find all of nkluesive’s work at @nkluesive on Instagram.
Emily Swan submitted two pieces in our next group of paintings, featuring a very cool ‘Cosmic Bear’ amid the galaxy behind it. This piece was stunning! I really loved the mixture of realism with surrealism in this piece. Another submitted is featuring ‘Loathsome Things’ patterned and stretched out across the expanse in intersecting ways. Both pieces are set in space, painted so nicely you can get lost in both. I really appreciate the vibrancy of Emily’s style too. You can find all over Emily’s awesome work at @strangecarbon on Instagram.
A soothing evening sunset scene is depicted with sunflowers dotting the landscape in Sophia Calvert’s second piece. The colours here are phenomenal and I absolutely love the feelings this piece evokes in me. You can just feel the gentle breeze bringing in the setting sun’s colours bouncing off the Summer fields as the orange glow descends.
Marjorie Chesebro brings us ‘Dancing Fairies,’ a very cute piece featuring silhouettes of fairies dancing on a pattern painted that reminds me of tie-dye. The treatment on the background is done with acrylic pour, on black paper. So I believe that the artist blocked out the fairy silhouettes with tape or rubber cement prior to doing the pour and peeling it off afterwards to reveal the black silhouettes underneath.
Here is a time-lapse video that shows the technique used by the artist, doing acrylic pour with water included in it for those interested in the process!
Our next group of pieces share a deep navy blue colour for two pieces along with white as prominent colour for the other two pieces, all arranged in a balanced manner. Denise Holguin brings us ‘Connections,’ (top left corner) a piece featuring bound wire art into spirals and physical wood and wire heart centerpiece. This was a really awesome way to use the 12 x 12” space in a cool way. The arrangement of everything feels really balanced, and I love the dedication to writing “connections” many times for the background effect. Awesome work! You can find Denise’s work at @deniseholguin2012 on Instagram. She is a great community member and part of the Visual Art League of Lewisville as their 1st VP and Social Media manager. Other than art, she also does writing, photography, marketing, and collecting miniatures and vintage hats.
Anna Reed (top right corner) shows us how even deep navy can feel bright and beaming in this monochromatic piece featuring a human-faced reflection of the Moon in the sky amid clouds on a dark navy backdrop. This piece is awesome, and I love the shadowing on the face as the portion of the Moon not visible in its current phase. ‘Blue by You; Blue Moon?!’ is a great piece to behold overall. You can keep up with Anna’s work at @annareed.art on Instagram. Anna does awesome realistic portraiture and eclectic artwork in sketchbooks, on pottery, or in the margins of notebooks.
Skye Rayburn gives us ‘The Fray’ featuring textile work in denim with crochet detailing. This piece is awesome and shows just what different types of things you can accomplish in a 3D space with the 12 x 12” canvas supplied for the show entrants. So unique! You can keep up with Skye’s work at @isleofskyestudio on Instagram where Skye makes impressive textile creations of any kind. Everything is doable with denim! Check out their incredible work!
Our fourth piece of this set is Addison Peck’s ‘Drowning’ featuring a character becoming lost and languishing in a pool of the canvas itself. It is a wonderful surreal piece with attention to the emotion of the character, their expression is quite peaceful as they drift off. Love it!
This group of paintings, photography and jewelry work are all fantastic!
Starting in a different place than usual, the top right corner is Julia Freund’s piece entitled ‘School, 2019’ using photos cut apart and acrylic paint. I love the eerie energy of this little world we are looking into, a figment of the artist’s memory. A portal through time. The room we are in feels all encompassing. The breaking apart of this image feels like the bits and pieces we hang onto in our memories of our pasts. Great work! You can find Julia’s work at @portalsportals on Instagram to see more of their liminal spaces honoured in their work.
Ana Lopez brings us to the world of jewelry making, showing off her handmade ‘louver earrings.’ These are made and sculpted out of copper, vitreous enamel, and sterling silver. Awesome work, in a small package but nonetheless impressive. You can keep up with Ana’s work at @anamlopezartist to see more of her awesome jewelry making skills!
The ‘Croissant au Ravelin’ piece that Kendall Myers has painted shows us a small, quiet moment where a person is enjoying some warm croissants and even warmer coffee. It looks like a comfortable scene unfolding. The handling of the shape and form with the style of painting in oils is nice and slightly textured looking, making it a very appealing painting. You can find Kendall’s work at @kendallnicolestudios on Instagram! They are traditionally a portrait painter for humans or pets and do lots of amazing work. Kendall is taking commissions for paintings, so hit them up if you are interested!
The last here on the top left corner is painted by Gilley, a local artist, writer, and musician from Denton associated with Toasty Bros. Beer. ‘To the Baby Bird I Accidentally Stepped On, You Are Officially A Bird Man’ brings us the image of a revered and remembered baby bird now depicted as an anthropomorphic bird man in his wild and textural style. There is a lot of energy in Gilley’s work that I like a lot, you can literally see it moving almost with every visible directional stroke of the paintbrushes used in his acrylic work. Here is another great piece he has done for Yellow Dog Art Bar, ‘Molly Dog’, featuring the same style;
You can follow all his work at @theofficialgilley on Instagram or see ‘Molly Dog’ painting hanging up in Harvest House where it’s final home ended up being. Keep an eye out for him appearing at events in town or a local gallery/business near you.
More great work in the next four, starting with Mark Calvert’s peculiar but awesome shag carpet piece that looks like it was stitched right into the canvas itself. Entitled ‘Mildred Jane Died Alone,’ there is lots of mystery to unravel with this piece that the creator probably knows more about than I do. It seems very personal or about some kind of event that took place in locality perhaps. Regardless, the piece alone is worth noting because of the tenacity it took to stitch this whole carpet piece together to get it on the canvas.
Janet Laminack brings us ‘Mo-Co’ – a fraction of the Morrison’s Corn Kits business sign caught in this cropping. It is accompanied by a friendly Denton TX grackle, flying nearby in a white outline. This crisp piece of art is such a beloved sight of many as we drive down Bell Ave. in Denton passing by the familiar factory.
‘Broncos Meet UNT’ is another amazing acrylic flow piece in the mix of the square-d show from Aidan Daly. Through the dripping, pouring, and playing with vibrant paint, acrylic flow provides an appealing and unique take on any subject matter. This one was of deep Denton Bronco purples mixing with medium UNT greens it looked like based on what I drew from the title and piece.
Lora O’Shaughnessy took this incredible set of polaroid photos featuring a dainty little clown with a pointy hat. Compiled together, ‘The Summoner’ is laid out over a pink painted canvas and brought together to form the story of this unique character. You can follow Lora’s work at @_folklora on Instagram, which is a great username I will note!
The next batch is a fun one! In the top left corner, April Calvert’s ‘Color Brings Joy’ is a vibrant beaming piece that evokes a sort of retro look. There’s nothing happier than the bright and sunshine-y yellow! This piece was painted with acrylic paints.
Kat Berry provided a very cute piece entitled ‘The Diamond of Love.’ It has got a nice composition to it using the colour blocking of blue, purple, and black to create a protective barrier surrounding the golden heart of love. Good work! Made with acrylic paints.
Emily Cavender brought the monster theme to the square-d exhibit with her piece titled ‘Relic’ made with secondhand fibers. This piece is so fun and has such a nice selection of monstrous or animalistic patterns! The eyes are the perfect addition too. You can follow all of Emily’s work at @ominousoutlooks on Instagram. Emily is also a UV art creator, art educator and writer.
My piece as part of the square-d community art exhibit is ‘Queer Solidarity on the Square’ by myself, Orion Fern S.! I am grateful for the opportunity to submit to the show!
This piece I created features multiple moments encapsulating my experiences within the LGBTQ+ community of Denton, TX. I have met new friends, seen old classmates bloom, and been a part of pride events at the square where we got to walk in solidarity together or be attendees of rallies. Important connections with all the lovely fellow queer folk in town made me want to celebrate that in this piece. I want to envision a tomorrow where LGBTQ+ people are celebrated and accepted fully, and Denton, TX gives me a peek at that dream becoming reality one day and event at a time. Thank you, Denton, for being a place I can be myself and be surrounded by authentic fellow queer folk who are more than welcoming. This piece was created with acrylic paint, Posca paint markers, and inking pens. You can follow my work at @ovaettr on Instagram.
Our LAST set of paintings include some phenomenal work by locals. Starting us off with some charming work in the top left corner is Will H.’S ‘Chest Plate, Mark VII’ done in pencil and marker featuring Master Chief from the Halo series of video games in his classic armor. Nice work Will!
Bringing us down to the bottom left corner, Michelle McCarthy’s ‘Sunflower’ is done in acrylic paints and shows us the beauty of the individual sunflowers out here in Denton, TX. I love the attention to detail and texture in the center portion of the flower here.
On the bottom right corner, Lea Hamilton shows us a great self-portrait with a horny toad critter on her shoulder. She looks happily down at it, and grins. She is beside a palm tree. ‘Rock With Me Baby’ she says to her little friend. A great piece!
Our final piece of the exhibit is Savannah Thomas’ ‘Denton Oddities’ featuring all of the hidden lore behind Denton, TX, including but not limited to The Albino Squirrel, the Chairy Orchard, native wildflowers, the Courthouse, and more! You can find out about where Savannah will be exhibiting her art next at her Instagram, @savyartbug.
That finishes off our tour through the square-d community art exhibit! Put on by UNT CoLAB, benefiting the UNT Food Pantry! I hope to see more events like this in the future and hope to take part in them yet again too.
Thank you SO much for reading this article and supporting the local arts of Denton, TX and beyond!
You can visit the UNT CoLAB at from 11am – 6pm Mon – Sat weekly at 207 N Elm St, Denton, TX 76201. They have tons of amazing exhibits like this one multiple times a year, featuring different great themes that you should check out!
Stay weird, Denton!
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