ARLINGTON, TEXAS Out Of Abstraction, the second installment of the Texas Paint series, opened the fall season at the Arlington Museum of Art with a grouping of fourteen Texas artists whose work is furthering contemporary abstraction. Opening concurrently in the museum’s Allan Saxe Mezzanine Galleries is Arlington Collects: The Pokrifcsaks, the first in a planned series that looks at collectors and collections in Arlington.

The AMA invites you to gain a fresh perspective on what abstraction looks like today. Texas Paint, Part II: Out Of Abstraction brings together fourteen emerging and established Texas painters utilizing abstraction to decidedly new ends. (Out Of Abstraction follows Texas Paint, Part I: More True Stories, which was presented at the museum in the fall of 2004 and showcased Texas painters whose work centered on narrative). Artists in the exhibition range from Dallas and Fort Worth to Denton, Austin and Houston. The exhibition does not attempt to showcase every Texas artist working within abstraction today, but to provide an overview based on two loosely defined camps, one freely expressive or “hot” and the other conceptual or “cool” as well as those that shapeshift between the two. The artists’ working methods and interests reference idioms that include abstract expressionism and neo-expressionism, minimalism, impressionism, pointillism, romanticism and pattern-painting, to name a few. In terms of subject, nature is a frequent jumping-off point; as are the subtleties of photography and technology; identity, literature and the pace and substance of today’s world.

The artists in Out Of Abstraction are: Lane Banks, Stephen Battle, William Betts, Susan Cheal, Grant Couch, Vincent Falsetta, Christopher French, Terrell James, Otis Jones, Andrew Long, John Mattson, John Pomara, Winter Rusiloski and Sydney Yeager. With different approaches to the medium, all of the artists share a respect for the craft of painting, whether or not the hand that wielded the “brush” is evident in the final product. Out Of Abstraction provides an opportunity to see a wide range of intelligent, contemporary abstraction where the dissimilarities, execution and content make for highly compelling viewing.