Past Shows

"Opening just prior to the Fall Equinox 2023, Ocular Nocturnes serves as a handbook to a shadow world, an invitation into the orphic depths of wonder, a preternatural journey into ethereal realms. Celebrate the diverse range of three artists who straddle the boundaries of material domains with new works made exclusively for this exhibition." -Alyssa Taylor Wendt

My artwork expresses the messy, ironic beauty of human experience. It combines social commentary with personal truths, inviting viewers into a space of presence and perspective that transcends right and wrong, emphasizing our similarities rather than our differences. My early fascination with advertising led me to excel as an agency copywriter where I learned to influence large groups of people through entertainment and persuasion. In 2017, I turned my gift of capturing the zeitgeist through pop culture and persuasion to activism as I began experimenting with more subversive ways to inspire positive change. Using the same process to create ads, I started to imagine humanity as my client, culture-jamming collective truths into dynamic campaign-like collections that turn advertising techniques on their head to “sell” deeper human truths. By juxtaposing vibrant, iconic imagery with cultural insights, I address the inequities of our world and encourage introspection, healing, and action. My works draw from pop, street, folk, and punk aesthetics, transforming the world's pain and trauma into expressions of joy, connection, and hope. Guided by my own healing journey, I hope my art inspires others to embrace their imperfect truths, realizing that everything advertising tries to sell is already present within themselves.

The show runs a spectrum of mediums including painting, ceramics, embroidery, collage, woodworking, neon, and mixed media.

Xavier Schipani was born in 1984 in Washington, D.C. He studied at the Center for Arts and Culture in AIX-en-Provence and received a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Schipani is an Austin-based Transgender artist, who has focused his practice on creating large painting installations that explore the boundaries of gender, body politics, sexuality, and queer identity. His unique voice and personal connection to the themes of his work create intimate experiences in combination with a larger-than-life scale to establish a contrast between the work and the viewer. He continues to investigate fear and anger, masculinity as performance, and the ambiguity of what makes a man.

SAINT NO (b.1980 La Mesa, CA) is a contemporary American artist. He mixes traditional American imagery, archetypes, clichés, and modern mythology, to examine the self and The West through a contemporary lens. To date, Saint primarily has made his mark on paper and canvas, though he has been known to explore fabrics and found objects. Recent exhibitions include “SHINE” and “SLOW BURN” at Mojave Flea, Palm Springs, CA., and “She Wished She Had Texas On Her Side” at Neighborhood, Dallas, TX. Saint currently lives and works in Tucson, AZ

RF. Alvarez was born in 1988 in San Antonio, Texas. The son of a Mexican immigrant father and 6th generation cattle-ranching mother, he grew up across two distinct cultures embedded in the Texas landscape. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Alvarez lived and worked in New York City and Los Angeles, before returning to central Texas to develop his studio practice. He currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.

Will Gaynor is a painter and designer living in Austin, Texas. His artwork is a visual interpretation of stories and experiences retold to create an ongoing personal and canonical folktale.

Alexandra Valenti is an artist based in Austin, Texas. A photographer for many years, Valenti has pivoted to large-scale painting (almost) full time. Her influences are vast, from stone idols, surrealism, Lee Krasner, Henri Rousseau, and John Lennon. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Valenti has lived in New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and for the past 17 years, she has called Austin home.

Butch Anthony is a contemporary, self-taught artist, maker, and collector of objects and antiques. Born in Pensacola, Florida in 1963, the artist grew up on his family's 80-acre property in Seale Alabama, where he lives and works today in a home he built by hand. He is the creator of the internationally recognized attractions including the Museum of Wonder, The World’s First Drive Thru Museum, and The Possum Trot, where his artwork can be admired and purchased by passersby.

Brooklyn-based Martin Mazorra is the founder of Cannonball Press and a longtime advocate of straightforward printmaking and affordable art. His exhibit BROADSIDE ATTRACTION at the Preacher Gallery showcases woodcut and wood type letterpress printed signage on fabric banners.

The Haus of Shiny Shit (HoSS) is a celebration of recent commissioned suits as well as the debut of brand new work available for pre-order—each piece informed by the desire to add their collective voice to the evolving story of contemporary western wear.

Inspired by hand drawn and hand painted lettering, Joe Swec is a sign painter in Austin, Texas. His artwork embraces the spectrum of typography from painting to calligraphy. Growing up in California and the East Coast, Joe has always been inspired by family and the ocean. Sea of Kin features collaborative works created with his father and calligraphy works inspired by his late great uncle and grandfather.

Two of Austin's most special artists, Aaron Michalovic and Adam Young, have returned to Preacher Gallery to showcase their new body of work, “There and Back Again”.

FOR NEVER EVER means exactly what you think. nothing lasts forever, everything is temporary. For me painting is like making music, each painting has a different story and rhythm. Each piece should feel and sound different. Every expression exists because it is supposed to. Choosing the titles are just as important as choosing the ideas to create. Creating the work is just as important as showing the work.

Welcome to YellowTown!!! “Let’s go to meet monster friends at YellowTown on this planet!!! They really want to see you, don’t worry, they never bite you!!!” Peelander-Yellow is a mural artist, and painter. He has created over 50 murals in the U.S. and Japan. He created 22 new monsters and something of the town for this art show!!!

Heather Sundquist Hall is an illustrator based in Texas. Her paintings are heavily drawn from memories, nostalgia, and stories. Much of the focus of Heather’s work is on the details or the more quiet aspects of the day (or night). It’s the subtle shift in light at sunset she pays homage to, or even the kind of plaid a couch was that was in her grandmother’s house in 1986. These often overlooked details become characters in her stories and illuminate memories through new eyes. Her artwork is also an attempt to honor what has been forgotten. Whether it’s the authentic parts or her own perception, painting isa cathartic release that brings new light to the past and allows for intention and reflection for what is ahead. Heather’s aim is to inspire the viewer to pause for a quiet moment when viewing her work. She hopes to hit a chord in some way, even just the smallest tug on their heartstrings.

I have heard that the stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of... well, you know. My paintings are known for the singular astronaut lost in a landscape cluttered with pop culture icons, corporate logos, and tongue-in-cheek science fiction references. In my first large scale show in Texas, at Austin's Preacher Gallery, I wanted to send the astronaut in my work out to explore the vast Texan landscape. The canyons and mountains of Big Bend, the empty roads and dusty train tracks of the expansive interior, the oil wells and longhorns, the stars at night and, of course, “Houston, we have a problem,” and everything else that makes Texas, well, Texas. I also found myself inspired by the sculpture of the large bronze star outside the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. It is—extremely literally—a lone star. It became a recurring theme in the work, appearing in riverbeds and the crests of hills and far off on the distant horizon, and lead me to what is perhaps an obvious title and theme for this show but one I couldn't stop thinking about.

Jack Sanders’ Big Flat Art show is his most recent exploration of new mediums and dimensions. A collection of studies and exercises, his pulled raffia ribbons find their way through each other in intricate weavings, his pen and ink drawings offer keyholes into galaxies of stars, his tortilla moons explore the constellations hidden in the flour, and his gold and silver cut paper pieces stack together like the trophies of our imaginations.

When spending time with Alexandra Valenti’s multimedia works, viewers will find imagery that is simultaneously familiar and abstract. These images evoke both a sense of connectivity to the natural world and one of nostalgic reverence for monumental constructions found in ancient cityscapes. The architectural influences from which Valenti pulls inspiration once stood as practical structures that showcased the ingenuity of human design, now existing as artifacts of cultures connected to Alexandra’s family lineage in Italy. In a way, these works are a device which connect her to a family history which is generally known, yet the individual narratives of which still remain mysterious.

A powerful, collaborative show between revered artists Rich Cali and Mother of God ceramics. Cali’s work ventures into ambiguity, but there’s nothing but certainty when it comes to the single-tone black ink and the sharpness of his lines, inspired by the natural world. And that inherent contrast—both literally and figuratively—is what lends his work its striking potency and simple beauty. Mother of God works with various clay bodies, exploring color and form to shape one-of-a-kind pieces using a blended process of hand building, wheel work, carving and painting. Their creative practice is one of patience and letting go. Together these super talents created a collection that is strikingly unassuming in it's forms, but stunningly complex in it's organic details.

Butch Anthony is a contemporary, self-taught artist, maker, and collector of objects and antiques. He grew up on his family's 80-acre property in Seale, Alabama, where he lives and works today in a home he built by hand. He is the creator of the Museum of Wonder, The World’s First Drive Thru Museum, and The Possum Trot. Butch creates art using various media and techniques, crafting them into one-of-a-kind-masterpieces. Throughout a career spanning decades, Butch created a specific genre of work called Intertwanglelism, (inter = to mix; twangle = a distinctive way of speaking, thinking, behaving, assessing; and ism = a theory).