"Lagoon Hues"

Hooks-Epstein Galleries is proud to open its 2020-2021 Art Season with "Lagoon Hues", an exhibition of mixed media works by Houston-based artist, Sandi Seltzer Bryant. The show will open on Saturday, September 12, 2020 and continue through Saturday, October 17, 2020. For Sandi Seltzer Bryant, making art is about layering her experiences throughout time; her abstract artwork includes handmade papers from over twenty countries, which have been used to create bold mixed media works on canvas and board. The work takes on a life of its own, with each layer of texture and color informing on the places to which she has lived and traveled, thus creating a dialogue between Bryant and the piece. The work in "Lagoon Hues" draws inspiration from her time in Iceland and more specifically, from her stay at the Blue Lagoon—a geothermal spa with striking milky blue waters due to the rich mineral content—set amidst vast lava fields. Viewers will be able to take a private video tour through Bryant’s show and envisage travels through the glacial blues and rolling lava formations of Iceland or perhaps conceive of an entirely different circumstance as it relates to the individual. Further enhancing the feel of an immersive event and engagement with each of Bryant’s pieces, the virtual tour will have the accompaniment of a musical score by prolific composer and librettist, Dr. Mary Carol Warwick, who is the protégé of noted opera composer Carlisle Floyd. Dr. Warwick’s works have been widely performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Singapore and include numerous commissions performed by the Houston Grand Opera. Sandi Seltzer Bryant received her B.F.A. in Painting from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA in 1974. Bryant's work has been exhibited in a number of collections nationally and internationally including Texas, California, New York, Washington, D.C., The Netherlands, and South Korea. In February 2020, all media associated with Sandi Seltzer Bryant was archived by the University of Houston Libraries Special Collections.