McMurtrey Gallery

MCMURTREYGALLERY // JULY 10 // 6:00 - 8:00PM

McMurtrey Gallery
3508 Lake St.
Houston, TX 77098
713.523.8238
www.mcmurtreygallery.com

RUSTY SCRUBY + STEVE WIMAN

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McMurtrey Gallery is pleased to present work by two incredibly talented Texas artists for
ArtHouston 2010. Rusty Scruby's Tradewinds features his unique "photographic
reconstructions", and Steve Wiman's The Currency of Accumulation showcases the artist's
constructions made from mixed media and found materials. Both exhibitions will open
with a reception on Saturday, July 10 from 6-8 pm, and will run through August 7.

RUSTY SCRUBY

In 1966, when Rusty Scruby was two, his parents obtained teaching positions on Kwajalein
in the Marshall Islands, and for three years the young family traveled throughout the
Pacific Realm. The work in the aptly titled Tradewinds is based on a series of the artist's
personal family photographs from this period.

In describing his current work, the artist states that he uses "various techniques to
reconstruct the photographic material. Using ideas I've gathered over the years studying
music composition, engineering and knitting, I create what I call 'visual frequencies'. I work
with ideas of tension and relaxation by controlling the amount of repetition in the image
as it travels across the undulating surface."

Recently Rusty Scruby's exhibitions have included Photography Unbound at the Robert V.
Fullerton Museum, San Bernardino, CA; Stretching the Truth at the John Michael Kohler Art
Center, Sheboygan, WI; and Playing in the Sand at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary,
Dallas, TX. Quin Mathews' 52 minute documentary: Rusty Scruby: Beyond the Plane
premiered at the Dallas Museum of Art, Horchow Auditorium. In April 2010, Playing in the
Sand traveled to the Art Museum of Southeast Texas for a solo exhibition running through
July 11, 2010.

STEVE WIMAN

"I have lived and worked in Austin, Texas since 1991 as an antique dealer and an artist. I
was born and raised in Snyder, Texas. From my family experience there, I learned the
habits of thrift and saving. My mother saved everything that might be reused- bits of
strings, twist ties, egg cartons, pieces of aluminum foil. I knew at an early age that I would
be an artist, although my childhood idea of 'artist' was very limited. As a child, I always
had a project at hand- bottle cutting, wood-burning, macramé, tie dye, weaving,
painting and drawing. These two urges- to collect and to create- merged over time into
the artwork that I have made the past twenty five years. My found object assemblages
are characterized by a reverence for the materials- using mundane or insignificant objects
as found with little or no manipulation. Surface texture, genuinely distressed color and true
patina are the elements that give my work its rich formal beauty. Careful editing
encourages the viewer to see these objects (often objects that are purely trash or throw
away) with new eyes."

Mr. Wiman has exhibited extensively throughout Texas for more than twenty years. His
work is represented in the collection of the Austin Museum of Art, and can be seen around
Austin in several collaborative pubic art projects. He is the owner of Uncommon Objects, a
small antique shop on South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas that acts as a "junk mecca"
full of "quirky stuff; oddities, urban artifacts, antiques, collectibles, and 'raw materials for
creative living.'" His antique business, art-making, and life are bound together by a
common goal to "find beauty where you can and make the most of it."