August 28 — October 2, 2021
Earth, Sky and Sea
Billy Hassell
Conduit Gallery is honored to announce Earth, Sky and Sea, the eighth solo exhibition of work at Conduit Gallery by Fort Worth-based artist, Billy Hassell.
Planted firmly in the long-venerated tradition of Texas artists who depict regionally specific vistas and the natural world, Fort Worth-based artist Billy Hassell magnifies landscapes as well as the flora and fauna that inhabit the diverse geographical regions of Texas and beyond. In his new large-scale canvas paintings, the Gulf Coast, Big Bend and Caddo Lake are all depicted with a visually encyclopedic pantheon of birds and beasts native to their locale. Many of Hassell’s subjects are migratory pollinators native to Texas and as Hassell plays with the scale of his subjects: birds, pollinators and the stray wandering beast, notions of the sublime begin to emerge.
Not necessarily an overt political action, the paintings are evocative depictions of earth’s natural wonders and are an invocation to consider what this beauty is, and whether we consider it to be in danger or not. Some paintings have reduced pallets, to suggest that color is being lost as we progress into our age of human intervention.
In addition to the canvases, the exhibition will include a series of small-scale wood relief paintings that depict silhouettes of birds atop iconic natural landscapes throughout the United States such as Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon and Palo Duro Canyon.
Born 1956 in Dallas, Texas, Billy 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, donating artworks to organizations including The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservation, and Audubon Texas, for use in fundraising efforts.