"Patterns" by Susan Morehead
WHERE: Texas Folklife Gallery, 1317 S. Congress, Austin (behind Ten Thousand Villages)
WHEN: May 4 to September 1, 2014
Opening Reception – Sunday, May 4, 2:00 to 5:00 PM
Free and open to the public.
“Patterns” is a selection of photographs by Susan Morehead featuring symmetrical designs occurring in both art and nature. The exhibition juxtaposes cactus species found primarily in the botanical garden of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with Persian tiles witnessed in Morehead’s travels throughout Iran. Both elements contain repetitive, mathematically definable patterns such as mirror symmetry, radial symmetry, fractals and tessellation. The resulting effect raises questions about the often-intertwined relationship between artifice, natural order and mathematics.
Susan Morehead is a founding member of Texas Folklife; she served as chair of the board for fifteen years and then as interim executive director in 2001, subsequently returning as a board member. For ten years beginning in 1978, she was executive director of the Texas Arts Alliance, the state’s grassroots lobbying organization for the arts, establishing the biennial Texas Arts Awards with the Office of the Governor as well as Arts Day at the Capital, and helping increase the legislative appropriation to the arts tenfold. After returning to UT for a master’s in architectural history in the 1990s, she served as interim executive director for TFAA, moving the organization to the Jones Center on Congress Avenue. She took up photography in grad school, photographing as she traveled in Mexico, the major focus of her interest, and in Japan, India, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia as well as in Europe. In 2013, UT Press published the book she coauthored with Logan Wagner and Hal Box, Ancient Origins of the Mexican Plaza: Primordial Sea to Public Space.
“Patterns” will be on display and available for sale at the Texas Folklife Gallery between May 4 and September 1, 2014.
An opening reception will be held on Sunday May 4 from 2:00 to 5:00 PM.
