SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The University of Texas at San Antonio announces an exciting group exhibition that explores Peter Saul’s influence on Texas Artists. Highlighting the works of Peter Saul, John Hernandez, Megan Solis, and Louie Chavez the exhibition opened to the public on Wednesday, June 7th.

A leader in the transgressive gaze, Peter Saul is recognized as having a strong counterculture aesthetic and a wild politically-incorrect figurative practice. Although, Saul is typically associated with the Hairy Who & the Chicago Imagists, he never actually lived in Chicago, but had only frequently exhibited there. The artist did however, live and make work in Texas from 1981 – 2000 while he taught at The University of Texas at Austin.

Although Saul lived in Texas for nearly two decades, he is not often associated with the state. While teaching in Austin, the artist had gallery representation in San Antonio at a gallery that operated in the Blue Star Complex in the 90s. In addition, Saul also had a solo-exhibition at Artpace in San Antonio in 1997. Through connections with the city, Saul has greatly influenced San Antonio artists. Now in his eighties and currently residing in New York, Saul has managed to inspire multiple generations of artists, locally and around the world.

John Hernandez, a Texas native, was one artist who came in contact with Saul’s work when it was exhibited in San Antonio. Thrilled at the discovery of Saul’s paintings, Hernandez connected Saul’s style to his own—clearly sharing a preference for lurid colors and eccentric, sometimes outlandish, subjects. Younger artists in San Antonio today are still enthralled with Saul’s practice, including Megan Solis and Louie Chavez, two emerging artists who also run against the grain.

United with a contrarian aesthetic, this exhibit brings together four intergenerational artists Megan Solis (b.1990), Louie Chavez (b.1979), John A. Hernandez (b.1952), and Peter Saul (b.1934) to explore artistic inspirations within similar sensibilities, specifically with an appreciation of ‘lowbrow’ imagery, critiques of popular culture, and conflicts with self that are presented with brash colors and the unexpected.

Peter Saul was born in San Francisco, California and studied at the California School of Arts and Washington University in St. Louis. Dan Cameron organized a traveling retrospective of Saul’s work in 2008 at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, CA that later traveled to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA, and the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA. He is in a number of major collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Saul is concurrently exhibiting at Blondeau & Cia in Geneva, Switzerland in a two-person exhibition, Make America Great Again, and also has a retrospective of his work at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany.

John Hernandez received his M.F.A. from the University of North Texas in Denton, where he studied under Vernon Fisher. He was an Artpace artist-in-residence in 2000 selected by panelists including Dan Cameron and Hans Ulrich Obrist. He has exhibited his work throughout the United States and Europe including exhibitions at The New Museum in NY, the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas, and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands. In 2016, The University of Texas at Arlington organized a 40-year retrospective of his work, Whew…That’s a Relief! curated by Benito Huerta.

Megan Solis has a forthcoming exhibition this fall at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio. Solis earned a BFA with a concentration in painting from The University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a multimedia artist who recently completed a residency at the Arteles Artist Center in Finland and a solo-exhibition at Hello Studio, Christina is a Coward.

This exhibition presents new works by Solis which focus on the visceral using very tactile and untraditional materials. Furthermore, she pushes the boundaries of reality and fantasy through escapism and a new character she developed, Charlie.

Louie Chavez is a multidisciplinary artist who has worked in performance painting, sculpture, handcrafted toys, and light installations. He has had solo-exhibitions at Soapbox Gallery in Brooklyn, Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin (the inaugural “Changarrito”), and Silkworm Studio in San Antonio and he has been commissioned for mural projects by businesses and organizations across Texas including Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin.

Chavez presents a new body of work for this exhibition in which he layers internet obsessions and meme culture with lurid colors and fantasy creatures.