WRESTLING HISTORY: POINTS ALONG A JOURNEY OF DIS/COVERY HIDDEN IN THE TEMPLE
May 12 to December 9, 2106
Christian-Green Gallery
Wrestling History: Points Along a Journey of Dis/covery Hidden in the Temple brings together a diverse selection of Houston and Rotterdam-based artist Angelbert Metoyer’s spiritually and politically engaged works, including paintings, sculptural installation, mixed-media collage, and video. Metoyer combines his interest in philosophy, quantum physics, and astronomy with an investigation of identity and mythology, drawing from stories within his own family heritage—the Cane River Creoles of eighteenth-century Louisiana. “My work is often interpreted as being about my own mixed-cultural past and also the cultural complexity of America’s past. Referencing ancient and modern mythologies from all over the world, I explore memory, moment and social changes in human history, examining scientific and philosophical questions about multi-dimensionality, teleportation and M theory (quantum concepts),” says the artist. “The materials I employ include ‘excrements of industry,’ such as coal, glass, oil, tar, mirrors and gold dust. With these tools I explore themes of waste and destruction, and existential issues of life and death.”
Angelbert Metoyer was born in 1977 in Houston, Texas, and currently lives and works in Houston, Texas and Rotterdam, Netherlands. Metoyer launched his artistic career through Rick Lowe’s Project Row Houses, where he held his first solo exhibition in 1994. He subsequently moved to Atlanta to study drawing and painting at the Atlanta College of Art and, something of a nomad himself, has lived in many parts of the world. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at numerous venues, including The Contemporary Austin (2015); Co-Lab Projects (2015); the Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston (2014, 2012, 2011); Paul Rodgers gallery New York (2003, 2004, 2005, 2006); Giovanni Rossi Gallery, Miami (2009); the African American Museum of Contemporary Art, Dallas (2008); the Dactyl Foundation, New York (2008); and the UC San Diego University Art Gallery, La Jolla (2005). His sound installations and collaborative projects have been featured at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2012); Venice Biennale, renegade art project sonic graffiti (2009); and Ping Pong Art Space, Guangzhou (2008).
