Three artists, Elizabeth Fox, Michael Pajon, and Damara Kaminecki, converge this month from Chicago and New Orleans to give us their take on American myth, symbol, and perception, at the Houston Heights Nau-haus this month, with an opening reception for the artists Saturday March 7, from 6 to 9 PM.  
   
In her first Houston exhibition What Is, Isn't, New Orleans's based artist Elizabeth Fox delivers an pictorial expose about men, women, race, and the cultural metamorphosis of mores past and present.  Fox deals with social equality of the sexes in a candy-colored palette and a pulp-fiction sensibility. In other works, she proffers an almost folk art approach with an authentic earthy pallet recalling historical roots while working out racial issues of the day.  It seems appropriate that a New Orleans based artist steeped in the culture of the proverbial Deep South like Fox, would be painting femme fatales ladling up a gumbo of soul food for thought at this juncture in America's social-political history. Pictured are leggy dames in stilettos that might break the bonds of objectification just long enough to become world leaders, and a black man wearing a well tailored suit, rendered on colloquial burlap, edified in the present time as president of our nation.   
In Gallery I at the Nau-haus, in a two person show, Michael Pajon and Damara Kaminecki, also make their Houston debut, as the same sides of different stylistic coins, coming to Houston's Heights area from the south side of Chicago. Michael Pajon, is the son of an immigrant to Chicago from South America who entered this country in the slightly dizzy atmosphere of the 1960's, and a good Irish Catholic girl raised on Chicago's blue collar south side. Pajon's work is inextricably linked to a kind of Americana particular to the Midwest, the heart of the American experience, and the burrows of the big cities. His particular experiences are the product of the integration and movement of Chicago's populations, the artifacts that groups of people have left behind in the still identifiable ethnic neighborhoods, and the points where cultural identities have overlapped and melded.  
   
"All of us were archaeologists, " says Pajon "as well as historians of sorts in our formative years. We sifted through our family's belongings and old pictures. We naturally asked questions of our parents, grandparents and ourselves: who is this? When did you go here? Was it really like this? Being entranced by these objects and images, being inquisitive about our origins is something that we all share. Asking the questions and finding their answers is integral to building our own identities."  
   
If Chicago and Americana are unifying themes in Michael Pajon's works, it may be his rupture of meaning and logic, that quantifies the Mad Libs approach to cultural production. His etchings share in the spirit of Kafka -- funny and with a strange, sickly vivacity, as in Captain Turk, which as the name implies, depicts a nautical turkey in 19th-century garb. The cluttered collage world of Michael Pajon is crammed with elements of nostalgia and fantasy. Perhaps the most elegant expression of this comes   
from Michael Pajon's hand-colored etchings done in the style of 18th and 19th century portraits. The small, antiqued portraits immortalize seafarers, businessmen, circus performers and families, all gentrified, all with animal heads.  
   
Pajon's fellow social archeologist and co-exhibitor Damara Kaminecki offers up her survey on what makes the American world go round with a collection of her favorite things. The artist says she gets her best inspirations while riding her bike through the alleys of Chicago’s neighborhoods.  "My mind kind of wanders in and out of the doors and windows as I pass."  What we see are Kaminecki's graphics cavorting through an open ended picture plane populated by the historic, the nostalgic and the bizarre, in a three ringed circus where we can take stock of who we are and what we might become. Colorful, complex and edgy, her finished pieces are actually gleaned from collections of small linoleum block prints made by the artist. The artist's iconic personal library becomes the resource then for recalling the things that she loves most, and a non-linear stream of consciousness for our interpretation. Kaminecki also works as an illustrator and graphic artist in Chicago as well as New York with clients Chicago Magazine, World Book Encyclopedia, Suave Shampoo, and Time Out Chicago.    (courtesy DMA, Nau-haus 2009)
   
Elizabeth Fox, Michael Pajon, and Damara Kaminecki will be on view at Nau-haus from Saturday March 7 through Sunday March 28, 2009.  

Owned and operated by Dan Mitchell Allison since January 2008, Naü-haus & TCA Studios serve as art exploration, collaboration and exhibition spaces for contemporary art. The Nau-haus is open from noon to 5 Saturday and Sunday or by appointment and is located at 223 E. 11th St. Houston, 77008. For more information please call Texas Collaborative Arts studio Monday through Friday at 713-261-1409, or Nau-haus on the weekends noon to 5 pm at 713-931-9722. Visit the studio and gallery on line at www.Nau-haus.com.