Yellow Glow

[hindesky]

https://preview.houstonchronicle.com/art-exhibits/new-public-art-in-houston-brings-cheer-to-a-15803408

Francesca Fuchs’ “Yellow Glow” and Falon Mihalic’s “Meander” cheer up those who encounter them while mirroring the landscape in intriguing ways. Unrelated yet complementary, both new works also embrace Houston’s relationship with concrete and can be seen during a bike ride or a hike around the Heights and downtown.

Fuchs’ “Yellow Glow” turns the underside of the North Shepherd overpass between 6th and 7th streets into a refined environment of columns with bands of soft yellow paint that fade to gray at the top and bottom. They suggest that bright sunlight might somehow have found its way into that drab space, washing the columns with an elusive flash of light. Commissioned by Radom Capital and Triten Real Estate Partners, the developers of the adjacent M-K-T retail center, “Yellow Glow” is a gift to the city along the Heights Hike and Bike Trail.

Fuchs, who leads the painting program at the Glassell School of Art, primarily produces delicately hued, small-scale canvases of domestic objects. This is her second monumental outdoor work. The first, a mural, created a subtle trompe l’oeil effect of imaginary columns on the facade of Lawndale Art Center in 2018. “Yellow Glow” is painting-as-sculpture, playing with three-dimensional perspective in ways that make me wish every underpass in town could be so transformed.

In some ways, it started with the gray base. Fuchs appreciates the various tones of gray authorities use to cover graffiti that appears on the columns supporting Houston’s vast system of freeways. And most people think of the columns vertically, she adds. “I wanted to go horizontal and make it so they’re somehow dissolving.”

Street art, while colorful, also tends to look chaotic. Fuchs’ project is timelessly meditative. She liked the idea of creating public art during the time of COVID-19 and applied for the MKT project because she wanted to make a big gesture outside instead of small pieces in the studio.