NETWORKS
AN ONLINE EXHIBITION OF COLLAGRAPHS, MIXED MEDIA PAINT, AND MIXED MEDIA ENCAUSTIC
BY MIKE MARTIN & CARA HINES
BY MIKE MARTIN & CARA HINES
NETWORKS features work by Comfort locals, Mike Martin and Cara Hines. Humans and trees are both sustained by unseen networks-trees by a microscopic underground network of fungus, by pheromones through the air and by Slow-pulsing electrical signals; humans through emotional and energetic signals. We are networked to each other-people to people to trees and all of nature-through space and time. Working with and supporting these networks allows us to support and sustain entire systems. Ignoring them can have devastating effects.
Martin's collagraphs celebrate his strong personal connections with trees, while Hines explores concepts of memory-temporal and energetic networks connecting family, nature and land.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
MIKE MARTIN is a printmaker and painter who lives in Comfort with his wife. He makes art in his old barn studio next to their home, which was built by her family that has deep roots in this town. He tends cattle on a family ranch on Elm Pass Road near Comfort where the trees are his companions and his muses.
View Artist Profile for Mike Martin
CARA HINES is an abstract artist working primarily in encaustic mixed media. She lives in Comfort with her partner and their Australian Shepherd. She is the owner and creative director of Studio Comfort Texas. She grew
up in the red clay soil of Childress and Hardeman Counties where she still has roots in that land.
View Artist Profile for Cara Hines
Martin's collagraphs celebrate his strong personal connections with trees, while Hines explores concepts of memory-temporal and energetic networks connecting family, nature and land.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
MIKE MARTIN is a printmaker and painter who lives in Comfort with his wife. He makes art in his old barn studio next to their home, which was built by her family that has deep roots in this town. He tends cattle on a family ranch on Elm Pass Road near Comfort where the trees are his companions and his muses.
View Artist Profile for Mike Martin
CARA HINES is an abstract artist working primarily in encaustic mixed media. She lives in Comfort with her partner and their Australian Shepherd. She is the owner and creative director of Studio Comfort Texas. She grew
up in the red clay soil of Childress and Hardeman Counties where she still has roots in that land.
View Artist Profile for Cara Hines
IMPORTANT DATES
Exhibition Dates | September 8 - October 29, 2023
Brunch Reception | Saturday, September 9 – 11:00am to 2:00pm
Comfort Art Festival | Saturday, September 16 – 10:00am to 4:00pm
All events will be held at the Studio Comfort Texas, located at 716 High Street in Comfort,
and across the street in the public spaces of Hotel Giles.
The exhibition is also part of the 11th Annual Comfort Art Festival. Artists will be on hand at local businesses throughout the day to greet visitors and discuss their work.
Exhibition Dates | September 8 - October 29, 2023
Brunch Reception | Saturday, September 9 – 11:00am to 2:00pm
Comfort Art Festival | Saturday, September 16 – 10:00am to 4:00pm
All events will be held at the Studio Comfort Texas, located at 716 High Street in Comfort,
and across the street in the public spaces of Hotel Giles.
The exhibition is also part of the 11th Annual Comfort Art Festival. Artists will be on hand at local businesses throughout the day to greet visitors and discuss their work.
VIEW THE EXHIBITION
Welcome to our online gallery for NETWORKS. Please click on an image below to enjoy scrolling through the gallery slideshow. To learn more about Mike and Cara, see additional views, and to purchase artwork, click on the buttons below. Artwork purchased from this exhibit will be available for pick-up or shipment after the end date of the exhibit.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
MIKE MARTIN | artist
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ARTIST BIO
Mike Martin lives in Comfort, Texas, with his wife, Susan. He is a plein air painter who paints in watercolor. Martin has recently returned to his roots as a printmaker and works primarily in collagraph prints. Collagraphy is a printmaking process in which textural and three-dimensional materials are applied to a rigid substrate. Similar to collage, the word collagraph is derived from the Greek word koll or kolla, meaning glue, and graph, meaning the activity of drawing. ARTIST STATEMENT “I have always had a love for the outdoors and hold a special reverence for trees. I experiment with the medium of printmaking to produce semi-abstract landscape trees. The prints are variable editions (VE) using mat board. I attempt to obtain an interesting texture using different materials, and I search for a print that has an organic, natural looking design that is strong and rich in value." — Mike Martin "Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the Lord when he comes to judge the earth." Psalm 96:12 |
CARA HINES | artist
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ARTIST BIO
Cara Hines is an expressive abstract artist best known for her extemporaneous work in encaustic, mixed media, and site installation, as well as her penchant for working with eyes closed. In her previous life, she was an interior designer who mixed sleek contemporary with reclamations in a sophisticated layering of materials, color, and texture. She has also been known to capture photographic images and write articles, stories, and poems, some of which make their way into her art. Ms. Hines started life as a precocious, barefoot artist in the small West Texas town of Childress, the daughter of a farmer/rancher and a teacher. She graduated from Texas Tech University with a Bachelor of Interior Design, and worked in the profession for more than 15 years. Her shift from designer back to artist was born of a desire to be less exacting and more spontaneous, as well as a deep, primal longing to explore the existential nature of emotions inexpressible through language alone. Cara lives in Comfort, Texas, with her partner, Ernest, and their Australian Shepherd, Ginger. She works from various studios located in her home, Studio Comfort, and occasionally her 1966 Shasta travel trailer. ARTIST STATEMENT "I am an evolving amalgam of artist, designer, wordsmith, and mischief-maker. As artist, I'm an abstractionist working in encaustic, mixed media, assemblage, and site installation. My process is a psychosocial exploration traversing the dark and sometimes grotesque, always reaching for the higher perspectives of expansion, beauty, and redemption. My work is more about combining materials in cohesive expression of inner-contextual impulses, & less about specificity of material. I’m drawn to forms and materials with raw, natural qualities & those suggesting imperfection, impermanence, and past life: aged paper, reclaimed doors, lumber, textiles, wire, old house paint, found objects. With these, I employ a number of artist media—encaustic, graphite, soft pastel, oil pastel, ink, acrylics, oils, spray paint. To view my art is to engage with my process. To own a piece is to connect and integrate it into your life. These are points of relating between us, and I thank you, the viewer, for showing up." — Cara Hines |
