CADILLAC RANCH AT 50

June 1 - August 25, 2024

The Cadillac Ranch is an iconic American art installation and destination that was first installed in 1974.  It was created by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who formed the art collective known as Ant Farm.  This exhibition is a celebration of the transformation of the Cadillac Ranch over the past 50 years.  Included in the exhibition are photographs by Wyatt McSpadden, who has documented the Cadillacs since the project’s inception, as well as two video works and various ephemera from Ant Farm member Chip Lord.  

PHOTOGRAPHY IS ART

June 12 - August 11, 2024

The artworks tell a story of American photographers’ efforts, from the late nineteenth century on, to explore and proclaim photography’s artfulness, and how broad acceptance of that perspective has since affected their practices. This exhibition reveals how often photographers have looked to painting for reference and ideas even as they shaped their medium’s own artistic language.

This is one in a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art as part of the Art Bridges Cohort Program.

SWOON

April 13 - August 11, 2024

 Caledonia Curry, whose work appears under the name Swoon, is a Brooklyn-based artist and is widely known as the first woman to gain large-scale recognition in the male-dominated world of street art. Callie took to the streets of New York while attending the Pratt Institute of Art in 1999, pasting her paper portraits to the sides of buildings with the goal of making art and the public space of the city more accessible.

TEXAS PANHANDLE STUDENT ART SHOW

April 27 - May 10, 2024.

The Texas Panhandle Student Art Show is the highlight of the year for Panhandle art students. It exemplifies dedication, talent and creative exploration by students K-12 in both public and private schools throughout the Panhandle. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, printmaking processes, computer art, collage, jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media work. This exhibition will be on view April 27 - May 10, 2024.

AC + WT STUDENT/FACULTY EXHIBITION

April 5 - April 21, 2024

Amarillo Museum of Art presents the Amarillo College & West Texas A&M University Student/Faculty Exhibition April 5—April 21, 2024. Since 1972, Amarillo College and West Texas A&M University Visual Arts Departments have enjoyed this partnership with AMoA.  The exhibition showcases the best works from current students and faculty of both institutions.  Students learn to prepare work for the exhibition and gain a sense of pride in sharing their work with the community in the professional setting of the museum.

20x20 EXHIBITION & SILENT AUCTION

March 28, 2024

Now in its 18th year, the 20x20 ART EXHIBITION AND ONLINE AUCTION is an annual fundraiser designed to celebrate art and support AMoA’s innovative education programs as well as our local artist community.

The generosity and support shown by artists participating in this event is vital to our museum and greatly appreciated by the AMoA Board of Trustees, Alliance, and staff. Participation in this event enables AMoA to continue bringing first-class art programming to area schools.

THE COLLECTING EYE OF RAY GRAHAM

January 20 - March 24, 2024

Ray Graham is more than a collector of artworks. His longstanding and generous support of visual art has positively impacted artists and arts organizations throughout the country. It was as an anthropology student at the University of New Mexico that Ray befriended, and began to support, artists who were beginning their careers. As a result, many of the artists in the Graham collection live, or have lived, in proximity of his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The artworks on view in this exhibition reflect Ray's curiosity and continuing commitment to supporting emerging artists, artists from within his community, and artists who may be underrecognized in their time.
Photography has been an important part of Ray Graham’s collection. Included in this exhibition are photographs by John Gossage, who Graham commissioned to document the activist Charles Hyder when he left Albuquerque to fast in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, for the cause of nuclear disarmament. Meggan Gould’s installation of anthotypes titled Corporate Time/Doomsday Time as well as large format polaroid prints by collaborators Patrick Nagatani and Andrea Tracey address similar concerns about nuclear proliferation. There are also several photographs by Meridel Rubenstein on view, including toned gelatin silver prints from the Low Riders series among others.

IN OUR OWN WORDS: NATIVE IMPRESSIONS

December 16 - March 17, 2024

In Our Own Words: Native Impressions features a portfolio of twenty-six vibrantly colored printed portraits by living artists Daniel Heyman (b. 1963) and Lucy Ganje (b. 1949). The two collaborated in portraying present-day members of North Dakota Indian nations, including those around Standing Rock.

Heyman traveled to North Dakota in the summer of 2015 to begin work with Ganje on a project that chronicles the stories of individuals who live within the state's various nations. The exhibition features each sitter’s personal oral history in his or her own words, as told to the artist while sitting for a portrait, giving voice to those historically denied a voice. Recurring motifs include climate, energy, and the legacy of boarding schools to which elder relatives were sent as forced assimilation.

The works are living testimony that Native culture is far from vanished, but rich, varied, and constantly shifting.

Featuring works by: Daniel Heyman (b. 1963) and Lucy Ganje (b. 1949)

AMOA BIENNIAL-600

October 14 - December 31, 2023

The 2023 AMoA BIENNIAL-600 is the tenth iteration of an ongoing series of juried biennial exhibitions exploring areas of artistic practice, material, and content.  Previous biennial exhibitions have focused on materials like clay, glass, and textiles.  Other exhibitions have investigated processes such as drawing, printmaking, and architecture.  This year, the AMoA staff and Board of Trustees are excited to offer the museum’s exhibition spaces to artists working across all materials and genres.

CRITICAL MASS:
PHOTOWORKS BY MERIDEL RUBENSTEIN

September 16 - December 3, 2023

The term “Critical Mass” means the smallest amount of fissionable material that, when amassed, will sustain a self-supporting chain reaction. CRITICAL MASS was a collaborative photo/text/video installation that takes as its subject the worlds of scientists and Native Americans as they intersected at the home of Edith Warner during the making of the first atomic bomb in 1944 in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

ARTSPACE: POP IMAGERY

April 29 - November 17, 2023

Pop Imagery, is a group of works from the AMoA permanent collection that reflects upon the Pop Art movement. Works included are from artists working during the era from the mid-1950s –the 1970s as well as more recent works from contemporary artists that are directly influenced by Pop Art themes. Pop was the defining movement that ended Modern Art and began the Post-Modern influx of conceptually driven art. Pop Art focused on imagery that was derived from popular culture i.e. movies, celebrities, consumer goods, advertising, and comics. Please take time with each piece to look closely and discover the artist’s intent and your own interpretations. Interact with the activities to make your own artworks to take home.

TERRY ALLEN

May 20 - August 27, 2023

Terry Allen is a visual artist and songwriter, born in Wichita, Kansas and raised in Lubbock, Texas. He has received numerous awards and honors including a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Art Fellowships among many others.  His work has been shown throughout the United States and Internationally, and is represented in major private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and L.A. County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. In addition to working in theatre and radio, he has recorded 13 albums of original songs, including the classics JUAREZ (1975) and LUBBOCK (on everything), 1979.  Terry Allen lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Austin, Texas with his wife, actress and writer, Jo Harvey Allen.

TEXAS PANHANDLE STUDENT ART SHOW

April 28 - May 12, 2023

The Texas Panhandle Student Art Show is the highlight of the year for Panhandle art students. It exemplifies dedication, talent and creative exploration by students K-12 in both public and private schools throughout the Panhandle. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, printmaking processes, computer art, collage, jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media work. This exhibition will be on view April 28 - May 12, 2023.

AC + WT STUDENT/FACULTY EXHIBITION

April 7 - 23, 2023

Amarillo Museum of Art presents the Amarillo College & West Texas A&M University Student/Faculty Exhibition April 7—April 23, 2023. Since 1972, Amarillo College and West Texas A&M University Visual Arts Departments have enjoyed this partnership with AMoA.  The exhibition showcases the best works from current students and faculty of both institutions.  Students learn to prepare work for the exhibition and gain a sense of pride in sharing their work with the community in the professional setting of the museum.

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART

January 14 - April 9, 2023

The Amarillo Museum of Art is proud to present the 29th annual Achievement in Art Exhibition featuring a beautiful collection of genre and impressionist paintings by important French artists such as Alfred Sisley, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, and Eugène Louis Boudin, among others.  In addition to luminous land and seascapes, the exhibition also includes a number of exquisitely rendered French pastoral scenes by Daniel Ridgeway Knight and Julien Dupré, as well as Parisian scenes by Edouard Léon Cortès.  Viewing this exceptional collection will transport viewers into an enchanting and idyllic late-19th to early 20th century French countryside.

ARTSPACE: INNER WORLDS

December 16, 2022 - April 8, 2023

This group of artworks, primarily drawn from the AMoA’s permanent collection, reflects various ways artists utilize the creative process to better understand the world around them and the world within. Please spend time with each piece to look closely and reflect on the artist’s intent and your own interpretations.  Interact with the activities to make your own artworks to take home.

20x20 ART EXHIBITION
& SILENT AUCTION

March 30, 2023

Now in its 17th year, the 20x20 ART EXHIBITION AND SILENT AUCTION is an annual fundraiser designed to celebrate art and support AMoA’s innovative education programs as well as our local artist community.

 The artworks in the exhibition will be sold via silent auction at a starting bid of $150. Fifty percent of the sale price will help fund educational programming at AMoA and fifty percent will go to the artist.  Artists may choose to donate their proceeds to AMoA. 

The generosity and support shown by artists participating in this event is vital to our museum and greatly appreciated by the AMoA Board of Trustees, Alliance, and staff. Participation in this event enables AMoA to continue bringing first-class art programming to area schools.

STRANGER(S) IN THE VILLAGE

January 14 - March 26, 2023

Gary Burnley (b. Saint Louis, Missouri) creates physical collages and stereographic devices that encourage dissociated images to merge in the eye and mind of the viewer. Resulting in optical rivalries that explore representation, memory and an image’s meaning through contrast, his amalgamations imagine strange bedfellows congruent for moments in time, space and reason. Burnley received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from Yale University. His work is part of many museum and private collections in US including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and many others.  His work has also been included in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad.  Burnley is the recipient of individual artist fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, the State of Connecticut, the New York State Council for the Arts and the Creative Artist Public Service Program. Burnley is also a recipient of the 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship and has received generous support from The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Aftermath Project, and Light Work, Syracuse, NY.

REUNION
September 17 - December 31, 2022

Reunion is a solo exhibition at the Amarillo Museum of Art presented by multi-disciplinary artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. Utilizing performance, video, ceramics and monumental sculptural installation to tell a story about planetary interconnectivity, Luger urgently implores audiences towards relational repair—with each other, with more-than-human relatives and with the land. Traveling both backwards through history and forwards into the future, the work challenges and empowers humans to develop deeper kinship with the natural world.  

In the new large-scale installation Transmutation, calcium carbonate and bone-black pigments cascade from lifesize glass Buffalo skulls acknowledging the annihilation of the American Bison, a species lost a hundred years ago and with lasting effects in the 21st century. 

This exhibition also premiers the new regalia and video work, Midéegaadi, from Luger’s speculative fiction series, Future Ancestral Technologies. This ongoing project looks to customary practices in order to move culture forward. It actively incorporates science fiction theory, storytelling, Indigenous technologies, contemporary materials and the detritus of capitalism to present time-bending landscapes and to prototype new myths. 

In addition to these new works, the artist presents recent large scale installation pieces and video works.

“This show is a reflection, not a retrospective, because I’m still very actively creating new art, but I like the idea of highlighting both the continuity and evolution of my art and concepts over 30 years.”

— SHEPARD FAIREY, 2019

FACING THE GIANT
September 2 - December 31, 2022

Facing the Giant is a curated series of images chosen for their importance aesthetically and conceptually, and for addressing critical topics and themes frequently recurring throughout Fairey’s career. The exhibition is comprised of unique screen-prints on collaged backgrounds with additional stenciling and embellishments completed in 2019.

 This exhibition was organized by the Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA in association with OBEY GIANT ART.

FANTASTIC VISIONS
May 28 - September 4, 2022

Drawn from private collections, this exhibition showcases the work of artists and photographers who embrace the surreal and challenge reality through creatively constructed images and unique perspectives. Real and imaginary figures inhabit worlds that hover between the sublime and visceral. Shana and Robert ParkeHarrison’s images offer a mysterious narrative filled with constructed mechanical devices and architecture that investigate human interactions with nature. Israeli artist Michal Rovner pushes her ethereal images of anonymous individuals and non-specific locations to the point of near abstraction that are saturated with emotional resonance. The works from Dutch photographer Teun Hocks exist between photography and painting. His large-scale, hand-colored gelatin silver prints are humorous and surreal scenes that are staged self-portraits. The artist often portrays himself in tragic, but comic situations resigned to acceptance and defeat within the constructed narrative. Photographs from Vik Muniz’s series’ Pictures of Junk and Pictures of Chocolate are compositions of ordinary materials transformed and reconfigured into an image that is then photographed by the artist. Additional artworks by artists such as Matthew Brandt, Nick Simpson, German photographer Elger Esser, and Russian-born American artists Rimma Gerlovina and Valeriy Gerlovinj, among others, are included in this exhibition. Visitors are sure to have an engaging and enlightening experience viewing this selection of artworks.

FRIENDS WITH YOU: THE DANCE
May 28 - September 4, 2022

FriendsWithYou is the art collaboration of Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III, created with the intention to bring more joy, kindness, and love to the world. The collaboration is a vehicle for the exploration of emotional healing through culture creation and art-making. Each work is created with the intention of transcendence, and nurturing care for the viewer or participant. FriendsWithYou’s meaning is in its name, in that everything in the universe can and wants to be friends with you, an aide in the promotion of love, harmony & peace in our lives. Their goal is to connect and heal as much as possible through their work, to grow the love and joy in each person, creating an exponential aggregate of sharing, healing, and compassion for each other and our living planet.

STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
April 22 - August 14, 2022

This exhibition of 54 photographs, taken over the past twelve years, honors 25 American visionaries and their often idiosyncratic, highly personal worlds.

Trying to fit these individual artists into a convenient pigeonhole tends to be a fool’s errand. Cultural historians tend to define them as folk, outsider, naive, or eccentric. The term “visionary,'' however, comes closest to conveying their ethos.

While there is no overarching term to adequately describe the collective characteristics of these visionaries, as a group they share at least three traits.

• Each of them has resisted the formidable pressures of mainstream American culture to pursue their own path and craft their own personal worlds of wonder.

• Not satisfied with visions alone, through force of will they have managed to transform their remarkable ideas into something tangible and substantial, usually with found and scavenged materials.

• They are largely self-taught, with little or no formal training.

ARTSPACE: THE POWER OF COLOR
January 28 – June 4, 2022

Color along with form are the essence of any work of art. The Post-Impressionist painter Maurice Denis stated – “ Remember, that a picture, before it is a picture of a battle horse, …a portrait, or some story, is essentially a flat surface covered in colors arranged in a certain order.” This is true in any era, though the Modern artists influenced by innovators like Piet Mondrian and developments of the revolutionary German art school The Bauhaus took these principals to an extreme. Works displayed in the Art Space stem from these Modernist ideas focusing on design, color and form as well as how artists use color to support their intended narratives. As you spend time with these artworks consider how color can affect your mood and perception. We hope this space inspires you to look, imagine and create your own works of art.

TEXAS PANHANDLE STUDENT ART SHOW
April 29 – May 13, 2022

The Texas Panhandle Student Art Show is the highlight of the year for Panhandle art students. It exemplifies dedication, talent and creative exploration by students K-12 in both public and private schools throughout the Panhandle. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, printmaking processes, computer art, collage, jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media work. This exhibition will be on view April 29 - May 13, 2022.

AC/WT STUDENT/FACULTY EXHIBITION
April 8 – April 24, 2022

Amarillo Museum of Art presents the Amarillo College & West Texas A&M University Student/Faculty Exhibition April 8—April 24, 2022.  Since 1972, Amarillo College and West Texas A&M University Visual Arts Departments have enjoyed this partnership with AMoA.  The exhibition showcases the best works from current students and faculty of both institutions.  Students learn to prepare work for the exhibition and gain a sense of pride in sharing their work with the community in the professional setting of the museum.

SPONSORED BY
Amarillo College
Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts & Humanities / WTAMU

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART: CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF AMoA’S COLLECTION
January 15 – March 27, 2022

The Amarillo Museum of Art opened its doors to the public in 1972, thanks to the hard work and perseverance of its visionary founder and first chairman of the AMoA Board of Trustees, Betty Bivins Childers. Through the dedication and generosity of many others, as well as the stewardship of current and past members of the Board of Trustees and staff, the AMoA has assembled an impressive collection during the past 50 years. This year’s Achievement in Art exhibition is a celebration of the museum’s collection. The AMoA has purchased important artworks by notable artists including Georgia O’Keeffe, Grace Hartigan, James Brooks, Luis Jimenez, Andy Warhol, and Larry Bell among many others. The museum has also been fortunate to receive generous gifts of art in a variety of media, styles, and time periods from local, regional, and nationally known collectors and artists. Gifts of art to the museum include important sculptures by Louise Nevelson, John Brough Miller, and Ben Woitena; photographs by Stephen Shore, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, and Ansel Adams; paintings by David Bates, Helen Frankenthaler, Ben Shahn, Elaine de Kooning, and John Marin; and prints by Jim Dine, Roger Shimomura, Ed Ruscha, and many others. The collection has also been greatly enriched by gifts of Asian art from Dr. and Mrs. William T. Price. The museum’s collection continues to grow in both number of artworks and significance to the region. This exhibition is an opportunity to discover new works in the collection and revisit some of AMoA’s most historically significant and iconic artworks.

AMoA BIENNIAL 600: JUSTICE • EQUALITY • RACE • IDENTITY
October 23, 2021 – January 2, 2022

This exhibition is the ninth in an ongoing series of juried biennial exhibitions exploring specific areas of artistic practice, material, and content. This year, the AMoA staff and Board of Trustees are excited to offer the museum’s exhibition spaces to artists with a socially engaged practice. The exhibition will be a collection of artworks submitted by artists residing within a 600-mile radius of Amarillo, Texas. On view will be more than 120 artworks in a variety of media from 46 artists. The juror, Leslie Moody Castro, is an independent curator and writer whose practice is based on itinerancy and collaboration. She has produced, organized, and collaborated on projects in Mexico and the United States for more than a decade, and her repertoire of critical writing is also reflective of her commitment to place.

TEXAS PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY’S 34TH ANNUAL MEMBERS ONLY SHOW
August 14–October 10, 2021

Amarillo Museum of Art presents the Texas Photographic Society’s 34th Annual Members Only Show. This exhibition will be installed in the gallery located on the museum’s third floor and will feature works juried by esteemed photographers Jill Skupin Burkholder and Dan Burkholder. The call was open-themed and welcomed submissions from artists of all levels internationally. The exhibition will feature 50 expressive images featuring First Place recipient, Karey Walter, Second Place recipient Dale Niles and Third Place recipient Parris Kitt. For a full list of exhibiting artists, please visit www.texasphoto.org/members-only-show-34- .

WOMEN OF ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM IN THE AMERICAN WEST
1st and 2nd Floor Galleries
August 7–October 10, 2021

The Amarillo Museum of Art presents, Women of Abstract Expressionism in the American West. Artworks by a number of important artists, including Elaine de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Jeanne Reynal, and Jane Wilson, among others, will be included in this exhibition. These women were an important part of the Abstract Expressionist movement during the post-WWII era in New York City. The Abstract Expressionists embraced a dynamic and gestural application of paint as well as more contemplative, nonrepresentational fields of color. Several of the artists featured in this exhibition visited the Texas panhandle region on multiple occasions to conduct workshops, lectures, and exhibitions organized by the gallerist, teacher, patron, and artist Dord Fitz. Artworks from the AMoA’s permanent collection as well as artworks on loan from private collections in the region will be on view. This exhibition coincides with new research and a forthcoming book by Dr. Amy Von Lintel and Dr. Bonnie Roos, Three Women Artists: Expanding Abstract Expressionism in the American West.

BRIAN COBBLE: PLACE AND TIME
3rd Floor Gallery
June 5–August 8, 2021

Brian Cobble grew up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and earned a BFA from New Mexico State University and an MFA from Southern Methodist University.  As a graduate student at Southern Methodist University he was influenced by the painters Roger Winter and Dan Wingren.  He also attended the Skowhegan School (Skowhegan, Maine) and was twice a resident at the MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, New Hampshire).

Cobble began his career as an oil painter, but now works primarily in pastel.  His work depicts the lonely and often barren urban and rural landscape in a photo-realistic manner.  Fellow artist and friend, Roger Winter states, “Cobble sees the landscape superimposed with fences, artificial waterways, refineries, quickly installed human habitation projects, trailer parks, asphalt slabs, and on and on and on. He paints the outward signs of a mobile semi-nomadic human culture, a culture in constant change.”

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART: THE ALBRITTON COLLECTION
1st and 2nd Floor Galleries
May 28 – August 1, 2021

The annual Achievement in Art Exhibition provides the public a chance to view important works of art while honoring notable collectors on their achievements in art collecting.

Claude Albritton has amassed one of the most comprehensive and encyclopedic collections of Texas art in private hands. With examples from early to contemporary Texas art, the Albritton collection follows a lineage of distinguished and influential artists working in the lone star state. Early examples include paintings by Julian Onderdonk, who is arguably most well-known for his celebrated landscape paintings that inspired the Texas bluebonnet genre. Other early Texas artists, such as Frank Reaugh and José Arpa are also represented in the collection. The lineage continues through Texas modernism and regionalism with Olin Travis, Jerry Bywaters, Loren Mozley, and Everett Spruce among others. Rounding out the collection are contemporary artists such as David Bates, a Dallas native who is widely recognized as one of Texas’ most accomplished visual artists, Sedrick Huckaby, the Texas State Artist of the Year in 2018, Roger Winter, and John Alexander. This exhibition will be a unique and rare opportunity for AMoA visitors to see some of the most outstanding examples of visual art from Texas artists.

JESS BENJAMIN
October 16 -May 30, 2021

Jess Benjamin’s artwork focuses on water usage in the Great Plains area: a regional concern that is related to the phenomenon of global drought and overconsumption of natural resources. As the daughter of a Nebraska farmer and rancher, Benjamin has witnessed the drought-like conditions in the Midwest throughout her life. Below the Midwest lies the greatest underground water reserve in the world, the Ogallala Aquifer. The United States has become increasingly dependent on commodities that require large quantities of diminishing water from the aquifer. Through research on water, Benjamin has discovered many structural similarities between intake towers, jackstones, and molecules of water and ethanol. Cartographic color, surface texture, and scale are used to aid in the understanding of water levels and drought conditions. Benjamin hopes to convey to the viewer the need to protect and preserve the aquifer, which contains our most precious resource, water.

TEXAS PANHANDLE STUDENT ART SHOW
May 7 - 20, 2021

The Texas Panhandle Student Art Show is the highlight of the year for Panhandle art students. It exemplifies dedication, talent and creative exploration by students K-12 in both public and private schools throughout the Panhandle. The exhibition features paintings, drawings, printmaking processes, computer art, collage, jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, and mixed media work.

AC/WT STUDENT/FAULTY EXHIBITION
April 9 - May 2, 2021

Amarillo Museum of Art presents the Amarillo College & West Texas A&M University Student/Faculty Exhibition April 9—May 2, 2021. Since 1972, Amarillo College and West Texas A&M University Visual Arts Departments have enjoyed this partnership with AMoA. The exhibition showcases the best works from current students and faculty of both institutions. Students learn to prepare work for the exhibition and gain a sense of pride in sharing their work with the community in the professional setting of the museum.

GO FIGURE: CONTEMPORARY PAINTERS AND THE HUMAN FORM
January 22 - April 3, 2021

Go Figure includes the work of six artists who use the human figure in their work. Each of these artists’ unique interpretations of human form reflect back to the viewer an insight into the human condition. The trompe l’oeil paintings by Vera Barnett and more classically painted works by Barnaby Fitzgerald border on the surreal, while the work of Miles Cleveland Goodwin and Sean Cairns tend toward the nonfictional, personal, and melancholy. The intense, expressive color of Lindy Chambers compositions and the evocative linear forms in Otis Huband’s paintings are more abstract and leave some interpretation up to the viewer. This exhibition—surreal, melancholy, and expressive—is presented as a collective reflection on the human condition.

PRECIPICE: 1 SUBJECT • 3 ARTISTS
October 16 - December 31, 2020

Precipice is the title given to a series of concurrent exhibitions by three artists: David Maisel, Jess Benjamin, and Mark Messersmith. Each artist is uniquely concerned with the interaction between humans, nature and the impact that this interaction has on the environment. THe photographer, David Maisel, explores the potentially destructive ways in which the industrial use of the landscape sustains our way of life. Jess Benjamin specifically addresses water use and the Ogallala Aquifer in her sculptural ceramic work. Mark Messersmith explores the tenuous relationship between humankind’s built environment and its impact on wildlife through his exquisitely detailed paintings. Amarillo is the economic center of the Texas Panhandle and there are many ways that the work of these three artists relate to the region. The panhandle region is a largely rural area that is heavily dependent upon agriculture for its success. The principle reason the Texas Panhandle is able to support civilization is through the use of human-centric technologies and natural resources. The Ogallala Aquifer is the driving force behind the region’s agricultural economy, which in turn supports nearly 30% of irrigated crop production in the United States. The second largest canyon in the United States, Palo Duro Canyon, is found in the Texas Panhandle and is a diverse, protected natural environment that is visited by several hundred thousand people annually. Additionally, the United States’ primary nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility, Pantex, is located near Amarillo and its impact on the landscape is incontrovertible. Each artist’s unique interpretation encourages inquiry and reflection about the fraught relationship between humanity and the environment in the area.

HUNG LIU: THE LONG WAY HOME
July 10 - September 27, 2020

Hung Liu: The Long Way Home is a solo exhibition of the recent work of Chinese-born American contemporary artist, Hung Liu in a variety of media including mixed media, resin, tapestry, oil and works on paper. Hung Liu is known for masterful recreations of historical Chinese photographs. Her subjects over the years have been Chinese refugees, street performers, soldiers, laborers, and prisoners, among others. Liu challenges the documentary authority of the appropriated photographs by reconstructing the narrative through a variety of media. Liu’s initial training in the Socialist Realist style of the Maoist regime is evident in the figures borrowed from the past and presented in a style that resonates with a narrative that is personal as well as universal. The expressive quality of Liu’s artwork is derived from layers of wash that frequently dissolves the original intent of documentary images, suggesting the passage of memory into history, while working to reveal the cultural and personal circumstances of the subjects. Liu studied mural painting as a graduate student at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, and in 1984 fled the Maoist regime and immigrated to the US. This exhibition is organized in collaboration with Judy Deaton, Curator of The Grace Museum, Abilene, TX and Turner Carroll Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.

THE PERMANENT COLLECTION: RED
May 22 - June 28, 2020

Curated from AMoA’s Permanent Collection, this exhibition will focus on the color red through a variety of artistic eras and mediums. Color has always carried cultural meaning and symbolism for artists, and red is one of the most significant and evocative of colors. Red ochre was first employed as an artistic material in prehistoric cave paintings. Expressing everything from anger to passion and death to life, it is arguably the first color available for artistic expression and one of the oldest pigments still in use. The exhibition will include Tibetan tsakli, Japanese woodblock prints, Afghan and Turkish textiles, as well as artworks by Helen Frankenthaler, Larry Calcagno, Luis Jimenez, Joseph Marioni, Trudy Kraft, and Ben Shaun among others.

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART EXHIBITION
THE HARMON AND HARRIET KELLEY COLLECTION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ART: WORKS ON PAPER
1st and 2nd Floor Galleries
January 26 - March 29, 2020

The 85 works in this exhibition date from the late 1800s to 2002 and represent just a fraction of what is contained in the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of San Antonio, TX. Inspired by an exhibition of African American art at the San Antonio Museum of Art in the winter of 1986-87, the Kelleys began their collection in part to reflect their heritage for their two daughters. Developing their taste and acumen as time went on, the Kelleys took great satisfaction in finding lesser known artists and researching the artists’ lives and artworks, ultimately compiling a comprehensive collection of African American artists. The exhibition was presented at the Amon Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, TX, the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, among others. Included in the exhibition are drawings, etchings, lithographs, watercolors, pastels, acrylics, gouaches, linoleum and color screen prints by such noted artists as Ron Adams, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, John Biggers, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Eldizer Cortor, Margaret Burroughs, and many other outstanding lesser known artists.

AMoA OPEN
2nd Floor Galleries
January 4-12, 2020

The AMoA Open is a unique initiative designed to give artists of all ages and levels of experience an opportunity to exhibit their work in a museum setting. It is open to any artist working in any medium. We will accept only one work per person. Artists must install their own artwork. The show is hung by the artist “salon style” from floor to ceiling.

AMoA BIENNIAL 600: TEXTILE AND FIBER
1st and 2nd Floor Galleries
October 11 - December 22, 2019

Open to artists living and working within a 600-mile radius of Amarillo and the eighth in an ongoing series, this juried exhibition explores specific areas of artistic practice, material and content.  Previous exhibitions focused on Drawing (’05), Clay (’07), Glass (’09), Figurative Painting (’11), Printmaking (’13), Sculpture (’15), and Architecture (’17). This year’s exhibition will focus on textile and fiber.  AMoA typically receives over 300 entries for each Biennial 600which is always juried by a notable scholar or curator familiar with the historical context and contemporary interpretations of the medium. This year’s juror is Alec Unkovic, Exhibitions Manager at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, PA. The museum will organize and produce an exhibition brochure which will include an essay by the juror and acknowledgement of the participating artists.