Artist Bios
JJ Baker
JJ Baker was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and spent his formative years there. He attended the University of Cincinnati, where he completed the Fine Arts and Art Education Licensure programs. He currently lives and works in Houston, TX, and has a studio at Hardy & Nance Studios. His current practice focuses on portraiture, combining traditional and contemporary techniques. Though primarily a painter, his work also incorporates collage, printmaking, photography, and film. JJ is the current artist-in-residence at the Rocky Neck Art Colony's Goetemann Residency in Gloucester, MA. He has exhibited at the Glassell Studio School, Archway Gallery, and received the 2nd Place Award at the Irving Arts Center's Texas and Neighbors Juried Show in Dallas, TX. Pat McEnery Pat McEnery is a Houston-based artist with an an educational background in psychology. She was a Hunting Prize Finalist (2015, 2016), and received the President’s Award in the Watercolor Art Society-Houston’s All Member Juried Show in 2012, as well as Honorable Mention in the Watercolor Art Society-Houston’s International Exhibit in 2013. This year, she completed the Block XIX program at the Glassell School of Art, in affiliation with the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston. Also in 2019, she was an artist-in-residence at AtelierHaus, Hilmsen, which culminated in an exhibition at Monchskirche Museum, in Salzwedel, Germany. She continues to exhibit her work referencing mythology, folk tales and the feminine spirit, nationally and internationally. Ellen Orseck Houston-based artist Ellen Orseck paints narrative images of figures, still lives and landscapes. Her paintings of tornados were selected to represent Texas artists at the National Museum in Lima, Peru, as well as in Houston’s City Hall. Throughout her career, Orseck has earned public arts commissions from state arts councils, corporate collectors and private patrons in Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland. Her work is displayed in museum collections in North Carolina. Orseck’s largest public commission was a mural awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts in her hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. From a group of 1,600 Texas artists, Orseck was selected as one of the 105 finalists for The Hunting Prize. She earned her Master’s Degree in Painting from New York University. As an undergraduate, Orseck studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and earned a Masters Degree in Museum Education at George Washington University. Her post- graduate education also included four years at The Glassell School of Art. Orseck is an art instructor at Rice University Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies and at the Watercolor art Society Houston. She shows her work at Mother Dog Studios, The Carolyn Garcia Gallery and Flatland Gallery, and works from her studio at 2101 Winter Street.. Anthony Pabillano Anthony Pabillano is a Houston-based artist born in the Philippines. He is an artist at Archway Gallery, the oldest artist-owned and operated art gallery in Texas founded in 1976. He serves on the board of the Visual Arts Alliance, a non-profit arts organization that provides educational programs and exhibition opportunities for the Houston arts community since 1981. He is among the first wave of artists in the Filipinx Artists of Houston, a collective of Filipino artists practicing in Houston that span the full spectrum of artistic expression. Pabillano studied art for four years in high school achieving many local- and state-level accolades, with the Congressional Art Competition being the most distinct which led to his artwork being displayed in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. for a year. Pabillano did not pursue the arts during his collegiate years, however, a few years after settling down in Houston, he began to slowly build up his artistic career starting in 2016. Within the past three years, Pabillano has been accepted in many juried art exhibitions, locally and nationally. The most recent exhibitions include the 49th ALH Celebrates Texas Art 2019, an annual Texas-wide juried art exhibition and the 2019 National Prize Show in Cambridge, MA. Pabillano focuses on portraiture based on realism and rooted on his desire to explore various aspects of the human condition and experience, from ideas relating to self and identity, to topics about diversity. His current artistic pursuit is to visually celebrate the diversity and the individual stories of the people he meets whose walks of life all led to the multiculturally-, multinationally-, and multi-ethnically-rich city of Houston, Texas—the place he now calls home. Laura Spector Laura Spector is a Fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts and Individual Grant Recipient of the Houston Art Alliance. Her work has been exhibited internationally including Zhou B Art Center in Chicago (2019), the Johann Friedrich Danneill Museum in Germany (2018), G-Spot Gallery in Houston (2018), ArtPrize8 at Grand Rapids Art Museum (2016), FotoFest 2014, Lawndale Center for the Arts "Big Show" (2017 & 2013), the Sovereign Art Foundation in Hong Kong (2011), Chiang Mai University Museum (2003), and Berkeley Art Museum (1996). Her work has been published in “The Harvard Review,” “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!” and in the book, The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art, by Wendy Steiner. Spector has studied fine art at both The Flemish Classical Atelier in Brugge and Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2016, she was a resident artist in Germany at AtelierHaus Hilmsen and was a presenter at The Representational Art Conference (TRAC) in 2014. Her body of artwork entitled, Museum Anatomy can be seen in exhibitions and collections around the world. She currently resides in Houston teaching painting and drawing at Glasscock School for Continuing Studies at Rice University, Art League Houston and Watercolor Art Society-Houston. Peggy Steup Apart from a 10-week course of art instruction at John Herron Art Institute (Indianapolis, Indiana) at the age of 13, Peggy Steup has had no formal art training (mostly because her mother would not have paid for such an impractical degree). She settled instead on a science career and family-hood. In later years, having run out of science jobs, children to raise and wall mural space, she embarked on a rediscovered art career. Peggy has studied under a variety of instructors, including Steve Parker, Polly Liu, and Laura Spector, and has exhibited work with Art League Houston and Lake Houston Area Artists. Peggy Steup enjoys painting a variety of subjects – landscapes, portraits, still life paintings – but particularly enjoys finding the unusual in everyday scenes. If she doesn’t find it there to begin with, she will add it. Terry Wheeler Terry Wheeler is a lifelong artist now devoted to a career as a full time figurative and narrative painter. He is committed to pushing boundaries in expressive portraiture with an emphasis on the sculptural aspects of oil painting. He has discovered an interest in painting more mature subjects due to the unique character that can be revealed only through time, experience and the aging process. |
DRAWING FROM THE WOUND
(L to R) Ellen Orseck, Peggy Steup, Terry Wheeler, Pat McEnery, Laura Spector & Anthony Pabillano
Pat McEnery & Anthony Pabillano
JJ Baker & Laura Spector
Peggy Steup & Terry Wheeler
Process - Editing Day #1
Process - Editing Day #1
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