Yolanda Urrabazo
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McNAY ART MUSEUM ARTISTS LOOKING AT ART (ALA) SERIES FEATURES
SAN ANTONIO NATIVE AND MUSEUM EMPLOYEE THOMAS STOKES III
On View Through January 12, 2019
San Antonio, TX (November 13, 2019) – The McNay Art Musem’s latest Artist Looking at Art (ALA) series features 14 intimate paintings from emerging artist, Thomas Stokes III. Stokes, 21, is a San Antonio-native and part-time Gallery Services Officer at the Museum. Primarily self-taught, Stoke’s work focuses on the human form and portraiture using acrylic on canvas.
“As in museums across the globe, Thomas demonstrates the high levels of creativity found in the staff, from curators to security personnel,” said René Paul Barilleaux, Head of Curatorial Affairs. “His portraits in particular pay homage to his artist-heroes—Picasso, Francis Bacon—among others.”
The ALA series salutes the vitality of the contemporary art community in the San Antonio area. The McNay Contemporary Collectors Forum (MCCF) initiated the Artists Looking at Art series and jointly sponsors it with the McNay’s education department.
The artworks on view at the McNay through January 12, 2020 are from a series of abstract portraits drawn from the artist’s imagination. It is also the artist’s debut presentation in a museum.
“I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember,” said Stokes. “I try to incorporate different emotions that I’m feeling at the time in the different faces, and bring it all together while abstracting the figure.”
Guests can find Stokes in galleries throughout the Museum helping keep the McNay a safe place for all to enjoy.
Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/71p67q9lwm86w4p/AAAoinUWChx3EQGiGa5uJt3Qa?dl=0
Interview with the artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuLRmCxd2mk
About the McNay Art Museum
The McNay Art Museum engages a diverse community in the discovery and enjoyment of the visual arts. Built in the 1920s by artist and educator Marion Koogler McNay, the Spanish Colonial Revival residence became the site of Texas’s first museum of modern art when it opened in 1954. Today, 200,000 visitors a year enjoy works by modern masters including Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Hopper, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.The museum offers rich and varied exhibitions as well as rotating displays in the Main Collection Galleries from the 20,000 works in the collection; more than 45,000 adults, teachers, students, and families take advantage of a variety of education programs and innovative educational resources.