Austin Arts Collective

September 01, 2026 - September 30, 2026
From The Cathedral:
"This Hispanic Heritage Month, The Cathedral presents a group exhibition featuring 11 Hispanic female contemporary artists, each bringing their own visual language, medium, and point of view to a shared exploration of culture, heritage, and identity.
Spanning painting, textile, photography, sculpture, and mixed media, the exhibition resists a single story — offering instead many stories of migration and rootedness, memory and reinvention, inheritance and departure. Some works reclaim traditions passed down through generations; others imagine new ways to carry that heritage into the present."
Featuring: Amanda Ané, Eliana Bernard, Hailey Marmolejo, Karmita, Laura Clay, Lys Santamaria, Maridad Studios, Mónica Ceniceros, Paola Rozo, Sara Palm, Sophia Gonzalez
Reception September 25, 2026 | 6:30 - 9:30 pm

September 25, 2026 - September 26, 2026
From ICOSA Collective:
"Contrapuntals takes its title from music, where two or more independent melodic lines unfold simultaneously. Rather than merging into a single voice, each retains its own integrity, creating moments of harmony, tension, and dissonance. The exhibition adopts this structure as a way of thinking about the conversation between the work of Intel Lastierre and Vy Ngo. Each artist approaches questions of history, power, and identity from a distinct perspective, generating meaning through proximity and difference. Rather than seeking resolution, Contrapuntals asks what becomes possible when distinct voices remain in conversation.
Lastierre's paintings draw viewers into fluid, flesh-like forms that hover between body and landscape, where layered surfaces and shifting contours evoke histories that resist fixed boundaries. Through these visceral compositions, she examines colonialism as an ongoing structure that continues to shape the modern world, with a particular focus on the Philippines and the United States. Her work gives material form to histories of violence, transformation, and survival while tracing how imperial systems informed ideas of democracy, progress, knowledge, and human value, producing enduring inequalities of power and belonging. Moving through histories of conquest, labor, language, technology, and representation, she reveals how practices of classification, extraction, and control persist within contemporary institutions. At the same time, her paintings recover suppressed histories and cultural memory, foregrounding resistance, resilience, and the possibility of imagining beyond inherited systems of power.
Ngo's work likewise begins with close observation. Emerging from a recent journey through central Vietnam, her paintings and installations draw on fragments of architecture, historical imagery, and found materials to examine how successive occupations continue to shape the country's landscape and cultural identity. Her work considers mission civilisatrice, the French imperial doctrine that framed colonial rule as a civilizing project, exposing how architecture, language, education, and class reinforced imperial authority while masking violence and dispossession. French, Japanese, and American occupations each transformed Vietnam without erasing what came before. Instead, these phenomena accumulated within its cities, landscapes, and collective memory. Ngo asks what it means to inhabit a place marked by overlapping empires and who determines which histories are preserved as heritage and which remain visible only as damage.
Together, Lastierre and Ngo approach empire not as a completed historical episode but as a living set of structures, stories, and material conditions that continue to shape everyday life. Emerging from distinct histories and geographies, their work reveals how power endures in landscapes, institutions, and memory while also illuminating the persistence of resistance and cultural survival. Like independent melodic lines, their practices do not resolve into a single narrative. Ultimately, Contrapuntals invites viewers to listen across differences, recognizing that meaning often emerges through the sustained encounter of distinct, unresolved voices."

Reception September 25, 2026 | 7:00 - 10:00 pm
ICOSA Collective
916 Springdale Rd, Bldg 2, #10
Austin, Texas 78702

September 26, 2026 - November 01, 2026

From Contracommon:
"I’m a landscape painter based in Austin, Texas, inspired by the vast panoramas of the American desert. My work is devoted to nature for its own sake—landscapes where life unfolds with little or no human intervention. In these open spaces, I find not emptiness, but presence: a quiet power that invites reflection and respect. Painting is my way of honoring that presence. I discovered my passion for painting at a young age, long before any formal training. Art came to me instinctively, as a natural language for understanding the world. Later, I studied computer systems engineering, and through mathematics and structure I recognized parallels between technology and nature—patterns, symmetry, and unseen forces shaping visible form. Over time, however, painting taught me that nature is less about perfection and more about balance: the meeting of light, atmosphere, terrain, and energy. My goal is to translate that harmony onto canvas. Purple mountains, open blue skies, and native desert plants define my visual language. While I once worked primarily in oil, I transitioned to acrylic for its mobility and versatility, allowing me to paint directly on site. Being in the landscape matters deeply to me. I want to feel the wind, observe shifting light, and sense the rhythm of a place as I work. The painting begins with walking, watching, and listening. I am drawn to what I call the “stillness and serene embrace” of the desert. My paintings are visual records of landscapes and of the flora and fauna that inhabit them—places that deserve to be remembered and protected. Many of my subjects are iconic locations I have visited and studied, often rich in legends and stories. These narratives, whether cultural, historical, or natural, quietly shape the emotional core of each painting. Color plays a central role in my work. My paintings are alive with color, yet grounded in calm. I seek a balance between vibrant energy and deep serenity, creating what I call a “restorative energy site” aesthetic. Sweeping desert views crowned by open skies and delicate clouds reflect not only what I see, but what I feel in that moment. Skies especially fascinate me—the way clouds form, drift, and dissolve, transforming the same landscape again and again. My paintings are not meant to be exact replicas of a scene. They are composed experiences. I arrange mountains, plants, rocks, and sky to preserve what I call the energy lines of a place—the invisible flow that gives a landscape its spirit. My goal is to invite viewers into these panoramic spaces, allowing them to slow down and feel the tranquility and quiet strength of the land. I hope my work inspires a deeper respect for nature and a desire to protect the environments that continue to give us meaning."

Reception September 26, 2026 | 12:00 - 7:00 pm