University of Arizona School of Art faculty members Lawrence Gipe and Alejandro Macias and MFA alum Jim Waid are presenting their artwork at Tucson’s Etherton Gallery from Sept. 23 to Nov. 29.
The opening reception is scheduled Saturday, Sept. 27, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the gallery, 340 S. Convent Ave. A look at the group exhibition:
Lawrence Gipe
Professor, Painting & Drawing
Exhibition title: “Casbah Noir”
In his words: “My latest suite of paintings are derived from screenshots I take from my computer while researching films. Just after World War II, for about 10 years until 1955, Hollywood became enthralled with setting their movies in exotic French colonial contexts, especially North Africa. Starting around 1946, they began to replay the formula of Casablanca over and over in a sub-genre that I call Casbah Noir. My intention with this series is to investigate Hollywood’s role in creating stereotypes that persist in our country’s current perception of that region.
Etherton says: “Lawrence has created a powerful series of paintings that slow the cinematic tempo to reveal the ideological foundations of colonialism embedded in the seductive language of film noir. In these films the Casbah becomes a metaphor for otherness, unknowability, and eroticized danger. Casbah Noir asks how Hollywood’s cinematic myths continue to shape cultural memory and political ideology today.”
Alejandro Macias
Associate Professor, Painting & Drawing
Exhibition title: “In the Cases”
In his words: “My work is mostly figure-based, and I use the figure as a way to respond to my own identity, but also social-political concerns related to the borderlands. In the show, you’ll see a variety of works spanning from like 2018 until 2025. Most of the work will be on paper. I’m interested in paper because of its durability and versatility. I’m interested in like graphite drawing because of its formal qualities, its immediacy, the fact that I can think about like technical aspects of the drawing but also abstract it. … I wanted to point out some of the work because of its color. I’m interested in the serape for its connection to my own Mexican American identity and the way I can also abstract color. And I’m also like interested in paper and in the fact that I can like mount it on panel and I can include a variety of media like found objects and like wood and collage as a way to further abstract the figure, and that it acts as a metaphor as well for my own identity.”
Etherton says: “We’re over the moon to be exhibiting “In the Cases.” … Raised along the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas, Macias draws from personal and regional histories to explore themes of assimilation, migration and cultural hybridity. His practice integrates traditional rendering, abstraction, and multimedia approaches, often using the human figure as a central point of his practice.”
Jim Waid
MFA ’71, Painting & Art History, University of Arizona
Exhibition title: “In stars”
In his words: “I chose my title because the In starts are like the intermediate stages of the insect as they’re growing, and each one metamorphoses into a different form. And then finally the caterpillar or the butterfly arrives. And I think of that as having a resonance with the way I paint, because things are always transforming and moving into something else, evolving into something else. And until it reaches that final state, we don’t know what it’s going to look like.”
Etherton says: “Jim is widely regarded as one of Arizona’s most significant painters. For over five decades, he has created stunning, abstract landscapes that translate the desert into densely layered, color-saturated compositions.”
Artist’s websites
- Lawrence Gipe: lawrencegipe.com
- Alejandro Macias: alexmaciasart.com
- Jim Waid: jimwaidartist.com
