CONDUIT GALLERY

James Sullivan
Marcelyn McNeil
Yana Payusova

October 26 – November 30, 2024

James Sullivan
A Jar in Tennessee

Conduit Gallery is honored to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Dallas-based artist James Sullivan. The exhibition presents current investigations into the relationship between figure, object and landscape, meditating on Wallace Stevens’ poem ‘Anecdote of the Jar’, which reflects Stevens’ ambivalence about man’s ability to create order within the natural world.

A Jar in Tennessee brings together distinct yet related bodies of work including sculpture, installation and printmaking. The exhibition includes large cast-iron vessels including Beaker, 2023, which was exhibited during Houston Sculpture month at The Silos at Sawyer Yards; a collection of bronze figures and objects from Sullivan’s ongoing sculptural practice that investigates collecting, forming, and re-forming objects
through different media; and a series of new prints and photogravures that capture the dense landscape of the Manomet Wetland in Massachusetts. Shot on a vintage Poco III folding view camera, the long exposures capture an amorphous landscape simultaneously static and dissolving. Each of these bodies of work involve a philosophical-spatial reverie about the visual language of place and placing the human within the wilderness of the world.

An artist with more than 40 years’ experience, Sullivan is an innovative educator and cultural leader in the visual arts. He is currently President of the Board at the Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, and Professor Emeritus of Sculpture in the Division of Art at Southern Methodist University, where he served as chair for 17 years. He exhibits widely in a number of media including sculpture, sculptural installation,
performance, drawing, and prints. He has had over 25 solo or two-person exhibitions including at JIAAF, Hadong, South Korea; Galerie Sol del Rio and Concepción 41 in Guatemala; the Art Museum of South Texas; Meadows Museum of Art, Dallas; Amerika Haus, Berlin; Galerie Muhlenbusch, Düsseldorf; and the Museum Moderner Kunst, Passau. He has participated in group exhibitions throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe. He is a 1989 recipient of the Philip Morris Skulptur Stipendiat to work in residency in Berlin, German, and the 2018 Distinguished International Artist at the Jursan International Art Foundation in Hadong, South Korea.

Sullivan earned his MFA degree in sculpture at California State University, Long Beach and BA in philosophy at Yale University. He has taught as Visiting Professor at the Hochschule de Kunste, Berlin, and Gachon University, Seoul South Korea and acted as Visiting Critic at the Yale School of Architecture, New Haven CT. He has been represented by Conduit Gallery, Dallas, since 1990. He lives and works in Dallas, Texas

Marcelyn McNeil
Awash

Conduit Gallery is honored to announce a solo show of new paintings and works on paper by Dallas-based artist Marcelyn McNeil.

Marcelyn McNeil creates both intimate and large-scale artworks on canvas and paper that initiate primarily through pouring methods followed by a sequence of considered responses. Built and unbuilt from multiple layers of paint, McNeil’s canvases balance clear and elemental simplicity with depth and mystery.

The paintings in the exhibition embody a kind of “material kismet”, where ink and oil pigments merge in unconventional, serendipitous ways. By staying attuned to the evolving possibilities of the materials, McNeil strives to produce work that resonates with the viewer on a contemplative level. Recurring motifs—suggested doorways, portals, and horizon lines—naturally spark curiosity and invite reflection. In addition to the large and small canvases, the exhibition will include a series of small works on paper.
“It’s been a rough few years in this country – while in studio my response has been to create work that feels quiet and introspective”, says McNeil. “I’ve been thinking about the Japanese concept of Yohaku no bi, or ‘the beauty of empty space.’ By stripping away visual and conceptual clutter, I hope to cultivate a sense of relief and craft a space for escape and daydreaming.”

Born in Kansas, Marcelyn McNeil received an MFA from the University of Illinois, Chicago. Solo exhibitions of McNeil’s work have taken place at: Conduit Gallery in Dallas, Texas; Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas; Galveston Art Center in Galveston, Texas; Kathryn Markel in New York City; Robischon in Denver, Colorado; and Central Features in Albuquerque, New Mexico; among others.

Group exhibitions including McNeil’s work have taken place at: San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas; Denny Gallery in New York City; Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles, California; McClain Gallery in Houston, Texas; and Joymore Gallery in Chicago, Illinois; among others. McNeil’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas and the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. A monograph, Marcelyn McNeil Works, was published by Radius Books in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2022. Included in the book are writings by Hesse McGraw, Executive Director at CAM Houston in Texas, and Alison Hearst, a curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas. McNeil lives and works in Dallas, Texas

Project Room: Yana Payusova
Is Your Halo On Too Tight?

Conduit Gallery is honored to announce the second solo exhibition in the Conduit Gallery Project Room, of ceramic based paintings by Russian-born, Arizona-based Yana Payusoa.
Payusova’s paintings and sculptures blend the styles and symbols of folk art, icons, graphic poster art, illustration, and comics, and reflect both her cultural heritage and her training in traditional Russian realist painting. The work in Is Your Halo On Too Tight?, created in part during her recent residence at C.R.E.T.A. in Rome, is Payusova’s attempt to make sense of our new reality. Highly detailed ceramic sculpture and a wall-based installation inspired by a Rube Goldberg machine explore how propaganda and misinformation operate within our news cycle and society as a whole.

States Payusova about the exhibition:
“I’ve always been an avid fan of old Soviet propaganda posters and often show them to my students as examples of beautifully executed, well-designed images—though severely lacking in subtlety. They always felt old-fashioned, even benign. The word “propaganda” itself seemed lackluster, a relic of the Soviet past.

That all changed when Russia invaded Ukraine. At first, the news seemed absurd: Russia fighting Nazis in Ukraine? Give us a break—what a ridiculous notion. Everyone was outraged. But within weeks, the public mood began to shift. To our disbelief and horror, we watched the propaganda machine spring into action, working seamlessly. Half the population remained outraged, while the other half began dutifully echoing Putin’s rhetoric.

As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, I’m no stranger to the absence of information and government censorship, where the official party line was handed down from ‘above,’ though rarely believed.

Now, the utopian dream of democratized information has birthed a dystopia. Information is abundant, but so confusing and contradictory, that we must wade through a sea of post-truths, deepfakes, and a smorgasbord of conspiracy theories just to arrive at our own version of objectivity. Once we do, we cling tightly to our perspective, feeling perhaps a sense of relief. We decide that we’re right, and we favor those who share our viewpoint. Meanwhile, we dismiss the other side as ignorant and gullible, wishing
they’d all take a one-way trip to Mars—and bring their sympathizers along.”

Yana Payusova was born in Leningrad, USSR in 1979. She received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She exhibits both nationally and internationally including recent venues at the Northern Clay Center (Minneapolis), Howard Yezerski Gallery (Boston), Tucson Museum of Art, Conduit Gallery (Dallas) and the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum (Taiwan). In 2021, Payusova was an Artist-in-Residence at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic
Research Center in Denmark, as well as a Visiting Artist at the Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass. In 2022, she was commissioned to create an installation for the new Real Unreal, Meow Wolf’s fourth permanent exhibit in Grapevine, Texas. She recently completed a summer residency at C.R.E.T.A in Rome. Payusova is an Assistant Professor of Practice and FYE Program Chair at the School of Art, University of Arizona in Tucson.

Conduit Gallery
1626 C Hi Line Drive. Dallas, TX 75207  214.939.0064

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 AM – 5 PM

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