Unit B (Gallery) and Redbud Gallery proudly present CAMx (Houston): Jimmy James Canales and Lee Michael Peterson, curated by Unit B’s Kimberly Aubuchon.

 

San Antonio based artists Jimmy James Canales and Lee Michael Peterson will participate in a 2-person exhibition at Redbud Gallery as part of an exchange program facilitated by San Antonio’s Contemporary Art Month (CAM), held each year during the month of March. Contemporary Art Month is excited to introduce itsinaugural annual exhibition CAMx.  Each year, CAM will partner with a different city for an exchange exhibition, an initiative that will raise the profile of San Antonio art and artists, and bring regional, national, and international artists and curators to San Antonio.

 

Jimmy James Canales’ Tejano culture along with the prevalence of constantly evolving technology has greatly influenced his work. Canales is best known for his performance work, but he also works in sculpture, installation, digital video, digital photography and social media. His work primarily focuses on cultural and individual revolution that responds to his surrounding environment, and the utilization of social media as a means of representation. His art explores concepts of identity, culture, relationships, technology and survival.

 

Lee Michael Peterson’s work questions the significance of the individual, and forces the individual’s existence to be confronted. Peterson who just completed an ambitious series of large scale mixed media drawings takes a usually well known individual (John and Bruce Wayne, 2013) and researches the name through social media to find other persons with the same name. This information becomes the stimulus for the composition. Honesty is priority. Peterson is not concerned with the changing world but rather asking to participate and be acknowledged within it. To be acknowledged and have an influence of some kind is to matter and NOT to be contingent, because “contingent” to Mr. Peterson is an ugly word. His work is concerned with the pathetic state, but simultaneously a humorous one – completely hopeless, yet still hanging on for dear life onto a sliver of fantasy.