223 E 11TH ST

Houston, TX 77008

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Saturday 12P - 5P

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223 E 11th St | 713-869-4770

ERIKA ALONSO | WHERE IS THIS PLACE?

Artist Reception Saturday November 13, 6P to 8P

G Spot Gallery Presents Featured November Artist, Erika Alonso and her exhibit 
“Where Is This Place?”
Opening Reception Saturday, November 13th, 2021  //  6p to 8p

“It’s a process of finding and losing, adding and subtracting. One that gently reminds you to keep moving; move to where the instinct tells you. It’s a process that requires you to stay engaged, curious, focused, and—most of all—be willing to lose it all and gladly start over again.”    — Erika Alonso

G Spot Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present Where is This Place?, a collection of works by Erika Alonso (curated by Moriah Alise) created in direct response to the limitations of places we could go throughout the pandemic era, and the desire to escape into her own dream world consciousness through her alluring all-over paintings. The exhibition takes its title from the first piece imagined in this collection, Where is This Place.

The artist’s ethereal approach in this body of work is established through the use of spontaneous, yet organized mark making, creating dance-like movement, emotional lines, found shapes and evocative color, echoing a balance of impressionism through its shift between abstraction and figuration. The paintings thrive in their ability to transport the viewer into a landscape that allows them to freely explore and get lost in what seems to be an abstracted landscape, but furthers into an unexpected character-filled environment where the viewer will notice recurring gestures as eyes, birds, insects, and animals of all kinds.

Alonso embraces the mess of unrestrained imagination, making room for her own fluidity and choosing where in each piece to restrain and tighten. The materials used to create these works—acrylic, charcoal, and water soluble graphite—lend themselves as mediums conducive to the artist’s additive/subtractive process. She explains: “I deal with problems when painting; that is, I create problems with the materials at hand so that I can resolve them into a painting. Of course, a painting does not have one definitive solution, and solving an unsolvable problem can be challenging—but only if you feel the need for certainty.

The opening reception for Where is This Place? is on November 13th from 6 – 8 pm and the exhibition will remain on view through November 30th.

“I sincerely hope viewers can lose, yet also find themselves through the experience of viewing these works.”   — Erika Alonso

Erika Alonso

Artist Statement
My paintings offer a glimpse into my inner-world, full of creatures and beings and feelings as lines and shapes and color. My process starts with no intentions, no goal, no specific inspiration—only emotion infused with energy. I paint quickly and all at once—chasing a glimpse of something in the paint and charcoal or ink, I am always just about to lose my train of thought. This aspect of my process—painting intuitively—comes through to the viewer, as figures emerge and then recede only to appear again, perhaps slightly different than before. What results finds comfort at the interstices between abstraction and figuration: painterly swirls of color, lyrical lines, a watchful eye in the sky, windows as escape hatches, reflection pools, cascading flowers (that are also people), birds, snakes, and animals of all kinds.

Erika Alonso

Artist Profile
Erika Alonso (b. 1987) is a self-taught artist and an unabashedly painterly painter working and living in Houston, Texas. Her childhood was spent in Southern California, a place she often “escapes” to while painting. Her current makings involve experimenting in abstract expressionism through a series of whimsical, abstract-figurative-landscape paintings that are meant to capture a moment in all of its fleetingness—the movement and rush and whirl of it.

In addition to her works on paper, Alonso is currently working on large-scale acrylic paintings on canvas and wood panels. In this series, she is exploring color and further defining her own visual language: a watchful eye in the sky, windows as escape hatches, reflection pools, cascading flowers (that are also people), along with birds, snakes, and animals of all kinds.

Alonso’s fantastical paintings and drawings have been exhibited throughout the Houston area and in group shows at Lawndale Arts Center, Winter Street Studios, Archway Gallery, and Foltz Fine Art Gallery, and can be found in numerous private collections in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, as well as in the not-so-private and world-renowned Lester Marks Art Collection in Houston, Texas.

G Spot Contemporary Art Space

G Spot Contemporary features local, regional and national artists who are unafraid to challenge convention. G Spot is a space with a decidedly grassroots approach to cultural exchange.

Gallery owner and artist Wayne Gilbert has owned and operated more than five art galleries in Houston, over four decades. Wayne’s seasoned approach to creative culture makes Wayne Gilbert’s Spot a worthwhile stop. The gallery’s rapidly changing exhibitions showcase eclectic and often provocative work by emerging and established artists from all parts of the globe.

Located in the Heart of Houston’s Historic Heights District, G Spot Contemporary Art Space is a comfortable place to engage, experience and connect with friends. We celebrate a new artist and reveal unseen work each month with an opening reception on the first Saturday of each month. All are welcome children and pets.