Margo Sawyer

Holly Johnson Gallery in Dallas is pleased to announce the opening of Reflect, by Austin-based sculptor Margo Sawyer. A reception for the artist will be held Saturday, November 18, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. The exhibition continues through February 3, 2018.

Throughout her career, Margo Sawyer has created installations which translate sacred spaces into a contemporary vocabulary. The central actor of Sawyer’s art is color.  Reflect 2017, is a large-scale floor installation that converses with the architecture in an ever-changing way, with the play of light and reflection moving throughout the space and uniting an array of complex and unexpected unions of color. Reflect, holds fragments of a career long fascination with glass, its optical color play, how transparency, reflectivity, luminosity, physicality, materiality, perceptual, material and shape affect the psychological effects of color, as a window into our emotions. Elements of the work were produced by the artist in residence at Pilchuck Glass School and recently at Franz Mayer of Munich, Germany in 2106. 

Sawyer often equates the work to a quilt of color, responding to the unexpected color compositions, the multi-cultural and gender associations as in the Gee’s Bend quilts, the symbolic use of form and color of the De Stijl movement, and the work of Piet Mondrian. Don Bacigalupi, Ph.D., Founding President of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, referenced Sawyer’s work in 1999, "Perhaps Mondrian comes closest to providing a precedent…think of Broadway Boogie Woogie and the way in which its composition has been read as a jazzy improvisation of a New York City streetscape, seen from above."

Sawyer was born in the U.S., although her formative years were in England.  She received a B.A. Honors Degree (1980) from University of the Arts London/Chelsea College of Art, formerly the Chelsea School of Art, London, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1980), and received her M.F.A. in Sculpture from Yale University (1982). She is a Professor of Sculpture & Extended Media in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Texas at Austin (1988-Present).

Reflect celebrates the artist’s third solo show with Holly Johnson Gallery. Sawyer has also been included in many national & international exhibitions such as; Play House, San Antonio, TX (2017), Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX (2016), El Paso Museum of Art, EL Paso, TX (2015), Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum, Austin, TX (2014), McNay Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX (2010), The Blanton Art Museum, Austin, TX (2008), Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX (2005), Blaffer Art Museum, Houston, TX (2004), Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA (2001), ArtPace, San Antonio, TX (2000), Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX (1998), Sagacho Exhibit Space, Tokyo, Japan, GalleryGallery, Kyoto, Japan (1996), PS1 Museum, Long Island City, NY (1989), and Barbara Toll Fine Arts, New York, NY (1989, 1991).

The artist has received numerous grants, fellowships, and awards. Most recently, Sawyer was appointed as the Texas State Three-Dimensional Visual Artist Laureate (2015) and was awarded the Dora Maar Fellowship (2016) from the Brown Foundation & the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Sawyer has been an Artist-In-Residence at Pilchuck Glass School (2001, 2013). She was awarded, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2001), a Japan Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship (1996), two Fulbright Research Awards – a Senior Research Fellowship to Japan (1995-96) and to India (1982-83), the Rome Prize (1986-87), a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Individual Artists (1987), and the New York State Council for the Arts Grant for Public Art (1986).

The gallery is located in Dallas’ Design District at 1845 Levee St #100 in Dallas, TX 75207. Gallery hours are 11am to 5pm, Tuesday-Saturday. The gallery is a founding member of Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas. For info email info@hollyjohnsongallery.com, or visit hollyjohnsongallery.com.