Conduit Gallery is honored to announce a solo exhibition of paintings and lithographs by Fort Worth-based artist, Billy Hassell. The exhibition will be Hassell’s ninth solo exhibition at Conduit Gallery.

The dictionary defines the word “Path” as ‘a trodden track or a way or a track made for a particular purpose’. Also a ‘route or course along which something travels or moves’ (from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

In literature, paths, or the concept of a path, have been used as metaphors to explore themes about life, especially about choices made. Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” for example, from and with which the concept of “the road less travelled” is most strongly associated, could be taken literally as a story about a path not taken or metaphorically, as it most often is, as a non-conformist choice about one’s life. As a title for this exhibition I use the word, PATH, to symbolize, in a general way, my own journey through my own life but also, and more literally, the gathering and the holding still of, some of the places I’ve been to and seen along the way, mostly venturing through Texas - east, west, north and south - but a few from a little farther away. Through it all, there is a respect and appreciation of all that’s there and all that these timeless places represent.


-Billy Hassell 2024

In his 2014 New York Times article, Michael Hoinski dubbed Fort Worth-based artist Billy Hassell “Mother Nature’s Stylist”. With a focus on nature, conservation and the environment, Hassell works with paintings, color lithographs and watercolors and sits clearly in the lineage of the Texas Regionalists of the early and mid-twentieth century.

Billy Hassell’s (b. Dallas, TX 1959) journey to becoming an artist began during his childhood in Dallas where he explored the wild areas and creeks of his East Dallas neighborhood. His imagination was fueled by the colors and geometric patterns of the turtles, snakes, lizards, frogs, and any other creatures he could fit in his pockets to carry home. As he began to draw the creatures, the beginning of his artistic and life’s work began.

Hassell earned a BFA from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His works can be found numerous notable museum collections such as the Menil Collection, Houston, TX; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Wichita Falls Museum, Wichita Falls, TX; the U.S. Embassy in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the University of Texas, Austin, TX; Ellen Noel Museum of Art, Odessa, TX; The Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX; and the Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, TX. Hassell’s passion for preserving the beautiful scenes of the outdoor world extend to conservation, creating artworks for organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservation, Texas Parks and Wildlife and Audubon Texas, for use in fundraising efforts.

Artists in this Exhibition

• Billy Hassell

Artist Video