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| Jane Mattingly - Art Contributor for modaustin.net writes a regular blog regularmain.com focusing on Texas Artists. |
| June Mattingly // Special "EYE" to Watch Sonia Berg, a painter, shows in “Deep End” at the newly opened Champion Gallery in Austin “Deep End,” in Austin’s about-to-be discovered Champion Gallery is a show of work by a young, about-to-be discovered Austin artist, Sonia Berg. Sonia Dutton, the owner places herself intently at the front desk in her L-shaped downtown (on 8th and Brazos) gallery. |
| A New Zealander by birth obvious by her accent, Sonia moved four years ago from New York where she filled positions such as a curatorial assistant for Art Investment Trust, an investment program for artists on a global level, within the photography collections of the Metropolitan, and editor of MutualArt.com, an art information service. “I wish to act as a provocateur and ask that Austin-ites demand serious art to be presented locally…there is a plethora of outstanding artists who have gallery representation elsewhere such as NY or Houston, but not in Austin itself…our name, Champion is a call to action: for collectors to get behind forward-looking new art of that caliber here too, and wish to collect art that has significance within the larger contemporary art world…” |
| Adam Schreiber, 2007, 24 x 30 inches, archival inkjet print |
| "Grand Soccerfield," 2009, graphite, goache, toner transfer on paper on panel |
| Obviously “Deep End” refers to swimming pools such abandoned ones in local motels or those dating back to the kidney-shaped backyards of the 60s – completely different from today’s pools - heated “wading” types, hot tubs or long rectangular shapes one depth for laps. Could Sonya’s waterless pools been created to address the acute worldwide shortage of water? Is her message political, hinting to convert acres of unused pools into organic vegetable gardens to feed healthfully the seriously populated world (or into soccer fields) and to save for posterity irreplaceable wondrous waterfalls in Nature? |
| "Pink Sky," 2010, oil, graphite, toner on paper on panel, 10.5 x 6.5 inches |
| Even though the sizes and mediums differ, from ponderous large scale charcoal studies to small painterly, subtly symbolic oil paintings, is Sonya creating expressive brushstrokes and linear expressions, drawn in perfect perspective to extend over the flat surface of the traditional flat picture plane – to divulge another message? Sonya received her MFA in studio art from the University of Texas just this year. Among her awards and fellowships is the one she received this past spring, a grant from the juried and prestigious Arch and Giles Kimbrough Fund at the Dallas Museum of Art for Texas artists under 30 (she was born in 1982). In 2009, Art Palace (before it moved to Houston) gave her a show in their Project Room. At present she serves as an adjunct professor at St. Edwards University in Austin. |
| CHAMPION 800 Brazos St Austin, TX 78701 512 354 1035 championcontemporary.com |
| "Untitled (Niagara)," 2010, oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches |
| On view through November 20, is art by artists (besides Berg) she represents such as Austin photographer Adam Schreiber who has an upcoming show at Artpace, San Antonio. Schreiber’s stunning, elegant black and white photograph of Texas’ Royal Memorial Stadium on the University of Texas campus stands out, especially on an evening when there is no game in progress. |