Austin's fall exhibitions reveal a fascinating preoccupation with transformation. Artists across the city are peeling back the surface of things, finding the strange and profound hidden in plain sight.
Katy McCarthy's Chorion Song at Ivester Contemporary stages tiny suburban scenes on her own placenta while Flux and Flame at Austin Fine Art Gallery explores alchemy and metamorphosis. From Jaylen Pigford's deceptively playful paintings to Darden Smith's drawings incorporating actual Texas dirt, these shows collectively examine what is typically overlooked.
Ivester Contemporary
Jaylen Pigford: The Show About Nothing — Now through October 11
Pigford's third solo exhibition at Ivester showcases the self-taught painter's striking ability to balance whimsy with weight. The show's title speaks to those familiar moments when we respond "nothing" to concerned inquiries, concealing things too complex to articulate — a theme that permeates Pigford's work. Throughout the exhibition, figures anchor nearly every canvas, each one layered with metaphors that transform seemingly playful elements into profound statements.
Katy Mcarthy: Chorion Song — Now through October 11
This exhibition of photographs and videos presents a surreal exploration of early motherhood through miniature tableaux that are both whimsical and viscerally unsettling. McCarthy, a filmmaker and photographer, stages small figurines of a mother and child navigating familiar suburban landscapes of white picket fences, pristine brick houses, and backyard pools, but grounds these domestic scenes in the artist's own placenta from her first child's birth. This striking visual choice transforms the everyday into something otherworldly, as the organic, fleshy terrain creates a purposefully grotesque contrast against the crisp figurines and cheerful sunflowers scattered throughout the works.
Flatbed Press
Group Exhibition: Printer’s Choice — Now through October 11
"Printer's Choice" offers a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on the collaborative art of printmaking by showcasing works selected by the press's own extensive inventory. Each printer has provided personal insights into their selections, adding an intimate layer of understanding. The exhibition highlights the diversity of Flatbed's collaborations, from Billy Hassell's stylized depictions of flora and fauna to Alice Leora Briggs' haunting imagery.
Yard Dog Art Gallery
Group Exhibition: 30th Anniversary Show — Now through October 31
Yard Dog Art Gallery brings together an eclectic roster of artists that exemplifies the gallery's long-standing commitment to outsider and folk art traditions. The exhibition features Big Dutch's stream-of-consciousness drawings that layer childlike presentation with dense social and political commentary. Tim Kerr contributes his distinctive caricatures, while the show also includes works by Margaret Sullivan, John Langford, Paul Rodriguez, and numerous others.
Austin Fine Art Gallery
Group Exhibition: Flux & Flame — Now through October 31
Flux and Flame explores alchemy and transformation through works by over 30 artists, each interpreting this theme of metamorphosis through their different mediums. Among the contributors, Pat Flathouse brings her signature colorful collages and paintings, while Trilce Mago transforms clay into ceramic vessels. Edd Ogden, drawing from 40 years as an architect and builder, creates surreal lacquer-based pieces.
Davis Gallery
Darden Smith: A Common Prayer — Now through November 1
A Common Prayer is rooted in reverence for the natural world. Working primarily in marker, pen, and gouache—occasionally incorporating dirt itself—Smith creates colorful pieces that echo the gardens of his youth. His works feature repeating motifs of flowers and ferns. These drawings represent what Smith calls "marks I have carried across a lifetime," transforming everyday observations from highway sides and limestone hillsides into vibrant expressions of place. The exhibition captures Smith’s first encounters with nature as a child and the ongoing dialogue between memory and present observation, creating what he describes as a common prayer hidden just beneath our knowing.
Wally Workman Gallery
Juan Luis Jardi: Más allá de la Realidad — October 4-26
Jardi's oil paintings transport viewers to the past, creating retro-feeling works that seem plucked out of space and time. Drawing clear influence from pop art and surrealism, his pieces evoke complex emotions. The artist strives to provoke these contradictory feelings through his vintage aesthetic, crafting scenes that feel like a well-executed trip to a past that may have never quite existed, where familiar imagery takes on dreamlike qualities that both comfort and disturb.
Photo courtesy of Ivester Contemporary
Self-taught painter Jaylen Pigford shows off oil paintings in The Show About Nothing.
