Today we’d like to introduce you to Felice House.
Hi Felice, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I come from a long line of artists and have been fortunate to have had exceptional, generous, teachers. My grandmother was an award-wining Vermont weaver, my mother is a painter and drawer, and my father has worked in computer graphics since its inception. As a child, I remember being bribed with bagels to sit still during my mother’s figure drawing classes. In the ninth grade, my mom helped me paint a copy of a Pompeian woman for a statewide Latin competition and it won first place. In truth, my mom did most of the work and should have gotten the prize, but that feeling of accomplishment and success through making art was important to my path. That same year, I went on a ten-day trip to Italy with my Latin teacher. Standing outside the Sistine Chapel, waiting in line to enter, a clear voice told me I was going to become a painter. I remember being startled by this at the time. I spent tenth through twelfth grades at Maxwell International Baha’i School in Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The diverse international community of the school and the Baha’i teachings of unity in diversity expanded my worldview. My high school art teacher, who lived in a tiny house caravan nestled in the old-growth forest, encouraged and fostered my love for art and the natural world. When I walked into my first oil painting class at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1998, holding a box of my mother’s old paints, I felt like I had gone home. It was such an exceptional class, I left knowing I would be a painter. Years later, in search of deeper training, I attended the Schuler School of Fine Arts, a family-run, classical Atelier program in Baltimore Maryland.
Around the same time, I started dating my husband sculptor Dana Younger. Together we have created a solid foundation from which to live, make and dream in Austin, Texas. To date, we have co-created three bodies of work: Re-Western, Sum You, Some Me, and Trailheads and Transmutations. The first two of these were figurative, while the latest investigates the landscape and the creatures of Texas.
I’m proud to be an Associate Professor of painting and drawing at Texas A&M’s School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It hasn’t always been easy to find skill-based training for representational art. In the middle of last century, academic art programs at universities and colleges systematically removed skills-based education in anatomy, representational drawing, figure sculpting and complex perspective. Since this information must be learned and not intuited, there used to be very few people to learn it from. At present, there is a resurgence of interest in figurative, representational art and with it, a collection of atelier-type training schools have opened around the world. In Austin, we are lucky to have the Atelier Dojo which teaches these fundamental painting and drawing skills. Besides skilling, the other hurdle I had to overcome was financial. I won’t be the first person to state that it is difficult to make a living as an artist. For some number of years, I worked on TV commercials as a set decorator, did commission work and taught private art classes to bring in income. In Jan of 2012, I was hired to teach painting and drawing at Texas A&M University. After one year of part-time work, I was hired full-time, got tenure and haven’t looked back. It is wonderful to work with colleagues from all over the world and with young people eager to learn and develop their skills.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
In the last decade, I have created three distinct bodies of work: Re-Western, Sum You Some Me and Trailheads.
The ‘Re•Western’ series of paintings and drawings view the mythical American West through a postmodern lens. Both a reflection and critique of Hollywood Westerns, the series explores the tension between heroic archetypes and gender. As described in Chicago-based online magazine Hypertext, “…the series places contemporary women into heroic roles…by flipping the gender, and retaining the same visual signifiers, the series…speaks to women’s access to power.”
The series gained significant attention in regional, national and international press, and even proved a viral sensation. Listed as one of the “Top Ten Houston Art Events,” the series appeared in media alongside such prestigious venues as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The series’ international debut at Leeds College of Art, in Leeds, UK sparked a wave of interest across social media platforms and digital news organizations. Coverage by BBC News reached almost two million viewers, coinciding with the 2017 Women’s March. The theme of the series resonated with this cultural moment and touched off even more media attention in the US. Several prominent digital publications featured the series, including Vice Magazine, Creators and Upworthy. The international attention went further still, showing up in media in China, Spain, and Japan.
Gaining international exposure led to acquisitions by the Booth Western Art Museum—a Smithsonian Institution affiliate—and by the New Mexico State University galleries.
“Interesting idea, well executed, full of references I could recognize…I’ve written a lot about Westerns and a lot about art – this was the show for me!”
-Sir Christopher Frayling, former Chairman of Arts Council England
The ‘Sum You Sum Me’ series of nine large-scale paintings and twelve drawings presents nature as a metaphor for the emotional state of women. The series met with critical praise and national attention and represents a positive contribution to my professional field. The successful opening reception at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan was attended by the director of the Grand Rapids Museum of Art. During an exhibition at the Dougherty Art Center in Austin, a feature appeared in Fine Art Today, the online component of Fine Art Connoisseur. The editor of Fine Art Connoisseur selected a piece from Sum You Some Me for a print article on contemporary portraiture.
“…the art reflects a desire to have viewers look at themselves and the world around them in a different way.” – Andrew Webster, Fine Art Connoisseur
‘Trailheads’ is the most recent series of paintings that studies, observes, and processes, the wild spaces of West Texas. The work follows in the footsteps of painter Thomas Cole, father of the Hudson River School, who believed that the American wilderness was sacred and essential to our nation’s identity. The paintings reflect on our times, our world, and the Promethean moment humans are experiencing which is demanding new choices in how we engage with each other and the planet.
“One of the projects of art is to reconcile us with the world, not by protest, irony or political metaphors but by the ecstatic contemplation of pleasure in nature.” – art critic Robert Hughes from Shock of the New.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Like: people’s efforts to do better, dogs, coffee, city-wide composting, public transportation, travel, my family, my job, nature, making art.
Dislike: people who treat children or animals badly, poor urban planning, excessive paperwork.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.felicehouse.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/felicehouse_art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/felice.house.9
- Other: https://pvfa.tamu.edu/staff/felice-house/
Image Credits
George Brainard
