Art in the Metroplex opens campus exhibit for 20th year
By Alisha Brown
Associate Editor

Fort Worth Gallery Night kicked off Art in the Metroplex, an exhibition in the University Art Gallery of 36 pieces from area artists that runs through Sept. 27.

This exhibition is a juried index of paintings, drawings, photography, printmaking, sculptures and mixed media, selected from 16 north Texas counties that comprise the Metroplex.

The juror, Deborah Remington, a printmaker based out of New York City, reviewed more than 550 slides pieces before making her decision to include only 36, said Ron Watson, chairman of art and art history department.

“A various number of curators and dealers come to look at this show,” Watson said. “This is the only annual juried competition in north Texas.”

The $2,000 Hawn Foundation Millennium Award went to TCU graduate and adjunct professor Carol Benson, who received her master in fine arts degree last May from the university.

“It was quite unusual that someone from TCU won the show,” Watson said.

Other TCU students and graduates whose exhibits were shown include: Denise Stringer Davis, “Plymouth II;” Kristy Laurent, “Prison;” and Damon Ryder Richards, “Reality Wall.”

Benson’s piece, “Afloat,” is a steel and oil image of a Datura, more commonly known as a moonflower.

“It is a white night-blooming plant that lays back over itself after it finally blooms,” Benson said. “I wanted it to look like something else — something floating.”

Benson said the sculpture reminds her of works done by the husband and wife artists, Christo, who do wrapped pieces.

“Once they wrapped islands off the coast of Florida in pink wrapping,” she said. “It was something I really liked, and it reminded me of my piece.”

After months working on it, she said then she knew her piece was finished.

“In drawing, you can draw something over and over again — like this wolf head that I kept drawing,” Benson said. “Finally I just did an outline and it was the one continuous line that made it work. It’s something you just know.”

Benson’s and other awards were presented by Watson at the gallery opening Saturday. The show, which is in it’s 20th year, was part of the 24th annual Fort Worth Gallery Night — an event put on by the Fort Worth Art Dealers Association, a non-profit organization of independent art galleries, private dealers, museums and university galleries whose objective is to raise the consciousness and stimulate awareness n he community to the art world.

Saturday, 403 guests viewed the works in the gallery in the Moudy Building North, Room 141. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.