“In November of 2002, the Wheeler Bro's Blew Into Houston Like a Dust

“In November of 2002, the Wheeler Bro’s blew into Houston like a dust storm to present ULTERIOR MOTIFS no. 4, creating a whirlwind extravaganza of paintings, drawings, and shit-kicking shenanigans…after the dust had settled, we were left wondering what hit us as they drove off into the sunset in their paint-spattered boots, tailgates down, to their next appointment with art destiny.” -The Art Guys It all began on the lonely dusty Plains of West Texas…Lubbock to be exact. Living in a cavernous downtown building and having lots and lots of new unseen art, artists and brothers, Jeff and Bryan Wheeler, dreamed up what would become an annual excuse to have a city-wide party to highlight their own art and music. (Bryan is also the frontman for Lubbock band, LOS SONSABITCHES). The Wheeler Brothers invited their artist and musician friends to unite for a free-wheeling celebratory art show that from the very beginning featured such measured craziness as opening ceremonies, real live Texas Tech cheerleaders, wandering musicians and magicians, Elvis impersonators, and lots more surprises at every turn. ULTERIOR MOTIFS was born. By UM no. 3, Ulterior Motifs was a much anticipated annual Lubbock event complete with real sponsors, over 1,000 revelers, and real art world reviews. Word got out to the rest of Texas, and in in 2002, the Wheeler brothers were invited by infamous Texas artists, The Art Guys, to bring their art extravaganza on the road to the famous ART GUYS WORLS HEADQUARTERS in Houston, Texas. As Catherine D. Anspon writes in her 2010 book, TEXAS ARTISTS TODAY, “The [Houston] debut provided imprimatur and just the right amount of insouciance to launch them into mainstream contemporary circles in Texas…” That night, the Wheeler brothers met famous Houston art people such as Gus Kopriva and Wayne Gilbert. ULTERIOR MOTIFS was about to get serious… Through their friendship with Kopriva and Gilbert, the Wheelers were able to meet most of their Texas Artist heroes. By the time UM no. 5 rolled around back in Lubbock, the list of artists had grown from the sampling of Lubbock artists to be a veritable who’s who of Texas artists including such notable artists as Ed and Nancy Kienholz, James Surls, The Art Guys, Sharon Kopriva, Terry Allen, and Luis Jimenez among many others. With this now important survey of contemporary Texas Art, the Wheeler brothers (with the continued help of Wayne Gilbert and Gus Kopriva), then preceded in taking the show on the road with many stops around Texas including The Amarillo Museum of Art, the Arlington Museum of Art, New Braunfels Museum of Art and Music, and even the prestigious Gerald Peters Gallery in Dallas. (Their appearance there had nothing to do with its closing just weeks later). Ulterior Motifs is a rare exhibit in that it rose up directly from the studios of the participating artists. No fancy curator needed here, just kick-butt Texas art combined with great live music, spontaneous performances, and a carnival-like atmosphere to provide any host city with an event to remember and a visual feast for the eyes-both irreverent and challenging, new and familiar. The Wheeler brothers are proud to be hitting the road in 2014-2015 with the newest reincarnation of UM. With this new line-up of artists, the diversity of work ranges from the ridiculous to the sublime yet manages to capture the essence of the heart and soul of Texas. Behind all the hoopla, this version of UM will enlighten its’ host communities on the art of Texas while celebrating its’ rich cultural heritage and educating the people on the social, political and ethical issues of Contemporary Texas Life. Known for his over the top pop concoctions, Franklin Ackerley rose to prominence in the early 1990’s in the Great Northwest while still in Graduate School at Central Washingon University in Ellensburg, Washington. He has become known as much for his secretive nomadic lifestyle as for his bright and energetic work. Ackerley has been featured in Art shows throughout the world. He currently divides his time between Lubbock, Texas and Wichita, Kansas where he plots his “not so evil” takeover of the Art World. Objects, like a low-rider wheel or garden shears, can be beautiful in their pure form. It’s when you take that thing and put it with something else or do anything at all to it, that it has a chance of becoming art. When this is done successfully, it’s called good art. I think the viewer should listen to what good art has to say to them personally. Call it conceptual, call it pop, call it shit for that matter. In art, labels aren’t required, nothing is. I make art because I love to and need to. Kelly Allison’s work has been exhibited in National and International Museums, most notably at the Shanghai Art Museum in China, the National Museum of Art in Lima, Peru and the Fine Arts Museum in Houston, Texas. She has studied under James Surls, John Alexander, and Dick Wray, and has been published in books, catalogs and magazines such as Art in America and Texas Monthly. Her work can be seen in many private and public collections including a permanent exhibition in downtown Houston as part of the Wayfinder Project. Michael Ray Charles’ graphically styled paintings investigate racial stereotypes drawn from vintage American advertising. Notions of beauty, ugliness, nostalgia and violence emerge and converge, reminding us that we cannot divorce ourselves from a past that has led us to where we are, who we have become, and how we are portrayed. He has exhibited throughout the world including Tony Shafrazi Galley in New York, and is widely collected and celebrated as one of Texas’ finest artists. James Drake was born in Lubbock, Texas and received his BFA and MFA from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He has established an international reputation for his massive steel sculptures, drawings and multi- media installations. His work is included in many public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of Amercian Art. Drake was included in the 2000 Whitney Biennial and in 2007 Venice Biennial, Think with the Senses Feel with the Mind, curated by Rob Storr. Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, Ana Fernandez knows a thing or two about the shifting Texas landscape. Using photographs and personal observations, Fernandez records and reworks the visual world creating off-kilter paintings (both enormous and miniscule) that reinvent real places and elevate banal urban settings into virtual monuments to modern American life. Along with her artwork, Fernandez has gotten national attention as the proprietor and chef of The Institute of Chili, an acclaimed food truck known in the Alamo City and beyond for its bold and innovative menu that gives a new twist to traditional Tex Mex cuisine. Ana Fernandez currently lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. Bill FitzGibbons received his BFA in Sculpture and Art History from the University of Tennessee, and his MFA in Sculpture and Multi-Media from Washington University in St. Louis. Bill has received over thirty public art commissions in five countries. In 1979 he became the first curator at Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri. From 1985 until 1988 he was appointed as the Director of Sculpture at the Visual Art Center in Anchorage, Alaska. In 1988 he became the Department Head of Sculpture at the San Antonio Art Institute. In 1991 he was selected as a Fulbright Scholar for the Hungarian Art Academy in Budapest, Hungary. Bill has also been on the adjunct faculty at Trinity University in San Antonio. FitzGibbons is the former Executive Director of Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum 2002-2013. B.C. Gilbert was born and raised in Amarillo, Texas on the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle. He received his BFA in 1997 from Cameron University in Lawton, OK and his MFA in 2001 from Texas Tec University in Lubbock, TX. He lived and worked in Idalou, Texas for eight years before moving to Wichita Falls, Texas, where he now lives and works. He strives to reinterpret the western stereotype in his artwork. Wayne Gilbert uses the cremated remains of Americans, uncollected, for infinite reasons, at funeral establishments mixed with a clear gel medium to create works of art. His intent is to question the phenomenon of art as it relates to humanity and as humanity relates to the art. The discipline is designed to investigate and question the academic substance of art as it integrates into the theory and critical analysis of art making. Wayne has lectured, curated exhibits and shown his art work all over the world. He also runs G Gallery in Houston, Texas. Felice House is an accomplished figurative painter who strives, through her portraits of women, to provide a counterpoint to the passive representations found in art historical tradition. Her subjects are beautiful and observable, but not consumable. Felice comes from a long line of artists. Her grandmother is an award-winning Vermont weaver, her mother is a painter, and her father has worked in computer graphics since its inception. When she walked into her first oil painting class at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1998, holding a box of her mother’s old paints, she felt like she had just come home. Luis Jimenez learned to paint and fashion large works out of metal in his father’s sign shop. He became famous for his slice-of-life lithographs and large-scale fiberglass sculptures that deal with the American social and politically sensitive and relevant issues of his day.

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