Clay Stinnett: HONKYTONK LAGOON
November 04 - January 13,2023
From Fort Works Art: "FORT WORKS ART is pleased to announce HONKYTONK LAGOON, a solo exhibition at FWA, by North Texas artist Clay Stinnett. Stinnett is a full-time outsider artist whose work in a white wall gallery will be a breath of fresh air in what can oftentimes feel like repetitive narratives in the art world. This exhibition will span both floors of the gallery and be an insider investigation into the mind of artist Clay Stinnett. This show began with the title work, ‘Honky Tonk Lagoon’, which came from a Bob Dylan track. “The lyric just stuck in my head and got my imagination going immediately. It's a mashup of ideas, which is what this body of work is all about.” states Stinnett. The experience and process of making art is what truly matters to Stinnett, however, the result is so visually rewarding and impactful that the experience for the viewer becomes equally as important. Digging through his studio, which can only be described as a space run by an organized hoarder, Stinnett located a study of an old master painting from the 16th century that he had and recreated it into a new fantastical world by warping the painting and adding his own elements. The works can best be described as if you are looking through a kaleidoscope filter that has been further distorted by the mind of the artist. Stinnett’s works are combinations of MAD Magazine, Garbage Pail Kids, trucker magazines and other pop culture references painted with acrylics and airbrush. However, he paints these works as if he was Hieronymus Bosch or artist Matthew Guest, two very important influences of Stinnett. Like the rest of the world, Stinnett is constantly inundated with media and imagery that he describes as a “constant and random assortment of unrelated pictures from social media.” For HONKYTONK LAGOON Stinnett dealt with that by using a 'stream of consciousness' mentality, understanding that preparing for an exhibition of this scale would be a marathon. “I went from zero to 200 mph…the Indy 500. I knew I had a lot of work to do to fill the space and I had no idea what I wanted to do.” So, what did Stinnett do? He created over 80 works for gallerist Lauren Saba to comb through to create an exhibition on a scale that is almost never seen at FWA. Saba says, “Stinnett is beyond prolific. He is so good at being an artist who proves his point of excess. When so much data, numbers, and pictures pass through our eyes in a day, how do you even distinguish one thing from another? You don’t. This excess pulls the viewer in and what they might like from afar, may shift as they approach to see all the pieces that make up the work.” Truly an important and significant artist in North Texas, Stinnett has been making marks from a young age growing up in Fort Worth. He has been working with FWA since their inception in 2014 at the warehouse at Shipping & Receiving. They are thrilled to be able to work with him on this scale. This is an exhibition that you will not want to miss. The artist will be in attendance at the reception November 4, 2023, from 6-10 pm. About the Artist: Clay Stinnett is an artist, muralist, and musician who graduated from The University of North Texas in 2004 with a BFA in drawing and painting. He describes some of his work as “a concentration of the process of blending unlikely combinations of references and a collision of source material, applied with a frenetic and hyperactive style of mark making.”"
Reception: November 04, 2023 | 11-3 am
Fort Works Art
2100 Montgomery Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
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