January 22nd – March 30th, 2024
The Gallery at UTA is pleased to present concurrent exhibitions: Profane Truths and Sacred Lies featuring works by Benito Huerta, and Post Modern Fulcrum with collaborative works by Janet Chaffee and Benito Huerta. The exhibition includes a sampling of Huerta’s sculpture, painting, drawing, and print work created over the course of his more than fifty-year artistic career. His subject matter includes an amalgamation of political, economic, and social commentary along with personal identity and pop-culture references. In addition, Huerta and Janet Chaffee will present works from their collaborative practice including drawings, prints, and mixed media installations that utilize an array of unusual materials such as steel.tar paper, concrete, grass, wood, Tyvek, and fiberglass. The work explores the physical and psychological boundaries of their individual and shared living and working spaces through use of a combined visual vocabulary intertwined with architectural materials, and plans that are integral to their residences and studios.
About The Artists
Benito Huerta received his M.A. from New Mexico State University. He was Co-founder, Executive Director and Emeritus Board Director of Art Lies, a Texas Art Journal. He is a Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington (1997 – present) and recently stepped down as Director / Curator of The Gallery at UTA (1997-2022).
His art has been the focus of 66 one-person exhibitions since 1976 including recently at Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas and at William Campbell Gallery, Byers Street, both in 2022; at William Campbell Gallery, Foch Street, 2022-2023, and at the Latino Cultural Center in 2023. Huerta has also exhibited at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture, Riverside, CA; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; Houston Museum of African American Culture; the Wichita Falls Museum of Art; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth; the Glassell Gallery, Shaw Center for the Arts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. His award-winning work can be found in several museum and corporate collections throughout the United States.
When asked about his work, Huerta stated, “I think that Gustave Courbet sums it up best in the Realist Manifesto of 1855: ‘…to be in a position to translate the customs, the ideas, the appearance of my epoch, according to my own estimation …in short to create a living art.’ “
For more information on Benito Huerta, see https://flyingchalupaproductions.com
Chaffee + Huerta Collaborative
Since 2010 artists Janet Chaffee and Benito Huerta have been exhibiting as a Collaborative in addition to maintaining successful individual studio practices and careers. Their artworks have been the focus of 3 featured exhibitions and have been included in an additional 3 group exhibitions. Janet Chaffee, the second member of the Collaborative, is an artist known for her use of texture and pattern. She often uses naturally occurring elements such as beeswax, minerals, or mica in works that reference the natural world. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, and after graduating taught at TCU, UTA, and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. She currently teaches high school art at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth. Her work has been included in numerous shows throughout Texas including a solo exhibition at the Ellen Noel Museum in Odessa, Texas in 2008. She has won several awards, and in 2010 she was awarded a grant to participate in an artist residency at Atelier Hilmsen in Germany.
For more information on Janet Chaffee, see https://janetchaffeestudios.com
There will be an opening reception on Friday, January 26 from 5:30 to 8 pm with brief remarks by the artists at 6:30 pm. In addition, a gallery talk/tour conducted by Benito Huerta will take place on Wednesday, February 7 from 12:30 – 1:30 pm. A second gallery talk with both Janet Chaffee and Benito Huerta is scheduled for Thursday, March 7 from 12:30 – 1:30 pm. The exhibition, reception, and talks are free and open to the public.
Chaffee + Huerta Collaborative, Screen, 2010,
Mineral fiberglass, 75″ x 136″
Benito Huerta, Impending Storm, 2022,
Oil on Canvas, 40″ x 30″