Opening Reception—Maria A. Guzmán Capron: Forma Seductora and Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin: Wayfinding
Friday, July 15, 2022
6:00pm—9:00pm
Artist & Curator Remarks: 7:00pm
Location:
Blaffer Art Museum
FREE and open to the public
Blaffer Art Museum presents first solo museum exhibition in the United States for Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Forma Seductora, and first solo museum exhibition in Texas of artistic and life partners Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin, Wayfinding. Join us for the opening reception of these two new exhibitions at the Blaffer.
Parking: Free parking for this event is available via the six complimentary marked lot spots directly in front of the museum entrance and at the Elgin Street Garage (4224 Elgin Street). To take advantage of complimentary Elgin Street Garage parking, please first park in the garage and obtain your machine ticket and then bring to the museum front desk upon arrival.
Maria A. Guzmán Capron creates fantastical hybrid figures that explore converging forms of identity, culture, desire, and social exchange. Her self-described “beyond-human characters” are made from vivid, often recycled fabrics and paint, which are stitched together to fashion sinuous bodies in various states of motion and repose. Often these bodies verge on abstraction as swathes of pattern and pure color are employed by Capron to represent a flopping, folding arm or billowing hairstyle. The contours of individual figures are subsequently lost, or melt into one another, suggesting an effervescent spillage of personality or emotion—whether it be joy, despair, lust, or introspection.
Capron was born in Italy to Peruvian and Colombian parents, before relocating with her family to Texas as a teenager. She graduated in 2004 from the University of Houston School of Art, and this will be her first solo museum exhibition in the United States. Maria A. Guzmán Capron: Forma Seductora is on view at Blaffer Art Museum July 15—September 18, 2022.
Learn more about the exhibition: blafferartmuseum.org/Maria-guzman-capron
Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin (working collaboratively as “Nick & Jake”) have spent the majority of their artistic lives mining the habitually marginalized and unheralded histories of LGBTQ communities across the United States, and how the legacies of elements found and forgotten affect the contemporary queer experience. Their primary body of work, 50 States, is an ongoing, multi-decade series of installations and performances made in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories from each state. This profound vocational endeavor engages critically with perceptions of history and identity as America’s views of sexuality evolve at an astonishing pace, while provoking deeply troubling social and legislative backlashes.
Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin: Wayfinding, the artists’s first solo museum exhibition in Texas, is on view at Blaffer Art Museum July 15—October 9, 2022.
Learn more about the exhibition: blafferartmuseum.org/nick-and-jake
Images: (Left) Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin, The Retirement of no. 99 (Kensett, AR), 2019. Charcoal powder and wind on paper. Courtesy of the artists. (Right) Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Sígueme, 2021. Fabric, thread, batting, latex paint, spray paint, and acrylic paint. Courtesy of the artist and Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles.