MakeShift PhotoRama – Significance Imposed
Kettle Art
2650 Main St.
Opening reception 7-10 p.m. Thursday
Twelve Dallas photographers paired up with 12 Dallas writers and took a Texas-soaked road trip. Significance Imposed is the collection of photos, landscapes, characters and words that resulted from the statewide jaunt. Prediction: There will be tumbleweed. Following the reception, the show will run through June 3.
Marion Wesson – Cluster Fail (pictured at top)
Galleri Urbane
2277 Monitor St.
Artist talk 4:30-5:30 p.m. Saturday
Marion Wesson created the upholstered works in Cluster Fail during the aftermath of an abusive relationship. The first piece is based on a night she called police to her home. “I based the fabric design on the violent outburst of when my ex grabbed me while screaming and yelling in front of our children,” she says. When she made her story public it elicited an outpouring of support she had not anticipated from other women. Determined to help others in her situation, she partnered with a former Rhode Island School of Design classmate, who helped her illustrate the fabrics. The designs are inspired by true stories of women who have survived abuse. Admission is free.
Kelli Vance – Sappers and Miners
Cris Worley Fine Arts
1845 E. Levee St., No. 110
Opening reception 5-8 p.m. Saturday
Typically, Kelli Vance’s works are like psychological thrillers in the form of still-life paintings. Emphasizing unorthodox textures (hair, rope, cake icing and wet skin to name a few), Vance usually plays with R-rated themes, like voyeurism. In Sappers and Miners, she’s taking a timeout from the tantalizing, focusing this time on more subdued rituals. Tinges of the occult follow her figures in "We Provide Our Best Offering to the Universe" and "Sun Eaters" as they prepare for psychological battle. Sounds a lot like Gone Girl, doesn’t it? Admission is free.
Olivia Divecchia – Dig/Site
The Reading Room
3715 Parry Ave.
Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday
To dig means to find a shovel and go to town. But it also means “to break up, turn over, to make an excavation, to unearth, to find or discover by effort or search.” In her new photo and text installation Dig/Site, Argyle native Olivia Divecchia digs into the meaning behind creation and destruction. Literally. Two years ago, the Brooklyn-based Divecchia began digging holes along beaches of the East Coast and capturing it. Here she’ll focus on digging as a metaphor, with meditations à la Virginia Woolf and Anne Carson. Saturday’s reception will follow a conversation between the artist and guest curator Temple Shipley. Admission is free.
Sally Warren – Convenience Store
Liliana Bloch Gallery
2271 Monitor St.
Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Saturday
Have you ever been in the middle of nowhere at a gas station, stepped on the relic of an Ozarka bottle, and thought, “My, what beautiful art?” Sally Warren has. That’s why she created Convenience Store, her new solo exhibition at Liliana Bloch Gallery featuring colorful and enticing pieces of trash she picked up at a rural gas station. The artist, who splits her time between Dallas and Port Townsend, Washington, finds poignancy in rusty cans and crusted wrappers, and beauty in the metaphorical possibilities of garbage. Admission is free.