Reception and Walkthrough Conversation with Ángel Faz

Saturday, december 17th, 2022
6-8 pm

at Dallas Art Fair Projects
150 Manufacturing Street, Suite 214, Dallas, TX

Join CADD x Maddrey Prize recipient Ángel Faz for a Walkthrough Conversation for their exhibition Queer Nature on view at the Dallas Art Fair Projects gallery.

ÁNGEL FAZ: QUEER NATURE
On view through December 23rd, 2022

In Queer Nature, artist Ángel Faz explores kinship, intimacy, and animacy within our environment. By relating the human body and consciousness with bodies of land and water, the work questions complex societal perceptions of nature and our connection to it. This iteration of work expands upon Faz’s previous project of 2021, in which they explored the personification of the Arkikosa (also known as the Trinity River). Through audio samples from the stream and hand-drawn digital animation, the artist weaved the river’s history within an imagined first-person narrative.

Queer Nature draws inspiration from the land back movement and the groundbreaking book Queer Ecology by scholar Catriona Sandilands. The titular term “queer ecology” refers to a philosophy that views nature, biology, and sexuality through a queered lens­– as existing outside of the rigid binaries and limitations that our society can impose on its inhabitants and surroundings.

What is considered “natural”, and why? Faz expands upon these philosophies by depicting queer bodies in nature and abstract representations of queerness as it relates to the environment. By doing so, the artist challenges the heterosexual and masculine dominant values often associated with the wilderness and reorients the viewers to a place of tenderness and kinship.

Embodied as a series of mixed media works, relief wood carvings, and installation in vivid color, Queer Nature is a journey celebrating polymorphous bodies, expressions, and pleasures. The immersive multi-media exhibition touches on themes of gender and intersectional ecofeminism and advocates the practice of unlearning to embrace indigenous ways of knowing.

The 2021 CADD x Maddrey Artist Prize was made possible through the generous support of our donors. The Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas would also like to thank our in-kind sponsors, Dallas Art Fair Projects and The Box Company, for providing the resources necessary to realize this exhibition.

About the Artist

Ángel Faz is a multi-disciplinary artist focusing on the intersection of ecology and history through art intervention and the reclamation of public space. Using a hybrid approach of digital media, projections, relief printmaking, and installations, their work discusses Dallas' history and, most recently, how the body exists in these places with complex histories.

Faz has exhibited at venues such as Oak Cliff Cultural Center, Women & Their Work Gallery, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and Kinfolk House, and was featured in New Stories: New Futures at Pioneer Tower in collaboration with AURORA Dallas and The Arts Council of Fort Worth. Their print Collective Care is included in the Prints & Photographs Division Online Catalog at the Library of Congress. Currently, Faz lives and works in Dallas' Oak Cliff neighborhood. Examples of their work can be found at www.angelafaz.com and on Instagram @thefaztastic.

About CADD x Maddrey Artist Prize

Initiated in 2020, the annual CADD x Maddrey Artist Prize aims to champion historically underserved and underrepresented groups of the Dallas arts community by offering quantifiable support. The prize is open to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) artists living or working in Dallas or Dallas County. The jurors for the 2021 prize consisted of Vivian Li, Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art; Christopher Blay, artist, writer, and Chief Curator at the Houston Museum of African American Culture; and Angel Cabrales, artist, and professor living and working in El Paso, TX.

Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas (CADD) is a 501c3 non-profit membership organization of galleries formed in 2007 for the purpose of promoting the advancement of contemporary art on all levels. Today, each of CADD’s member galleries function as an important component of the Dallas art community, providing the means by which artists reach their public and collectors gain access to works of art. Through year-round social and fundraising events, CADD aims to develop resources that support visual artists in our community.

Thomas Maddrey is the founder of Maddrey PLLC, a boutique law firm focused on artists, collectors, and galleries. In 2021, Thomas reimagined how to support these communities and launched Maddrey Consulting LLC where he provides specialized one-on-one guidance to those in the creative industry.

Dallas Art Fair Projects is an arts and special projects space located in the Dallas Design District, formerly known as 214 Projects. This additional venue allows international galleries and Dallas Art Fair exhibitors to present more ambitious art installations and special projects in Dallas on a year-round basis.

Founded in 2016 by Jason & Nancy Koen, The Box Company is a Dallas - based art services company specializing in installation, transportation, and storage of work for museums, galleries, and private collections.