Daniel Wang’s paintings bridge a connection between the deep history of Chinese painting traditions with the modern Texas landscape that he was raised in. These works allude to traditional Chinese scroll paintings in form. Water, birds, trees, and nature are common subjects in traditional Chinese ink painting, but the ones he depicts– largemouth bass, crawfish, and great blue heron- are rooted in the Texas Hill Country and the creeks and rivers that weave through it. In Wang’s painting “Joy Ride” we see a largemouth bass (a favorite fish amongst Texas anglers) carrying a crawfish in its mouth. The title insinuates that it is a non-violent act and that the crawfish is simply catching a ride. This keeps the imagery light and fantastical while something more sinister lurks on the edge of the painting, an ode to Chinese scrolls. From afar it might look like the traditional flowers and flowing imagery you would find along the border, but with closer inspection, you see brain-eating amoebas (Naegleria Fowleri) encircling the canvas. Brain-eating amoebas are deadly microorganisms that are found in very warm freshwaters. Due to global warming, we have seen summer in Texas heat up faster, leading to the rapid warming of lakes and rivers earlier in the year. While Texas has the most brain-eating amoeba infections in the US, is it said to be thought that these microbes may now be present in all freshwater, awaiting the warming temperatures to wake up, only further pressing the notion that we must protect and appreciate our clean, abundant, and swimmable waters while we still have it.

Loc Huynh’s paintings in “Guided By Water” aim to preserve and focus on instances of exchange between people and the natural world regarding water. The two works based on Huynh’s family photographs, “Seagulls at the Beach” and “Crab Catchin’”, take traditional cues from genre paintings. In both paintings, the figures are seen interacting with the natural world by way of engaging with animals. Animals often help us understand nature, but also underscore our shortcomings and estrangement from it. The vastness of the water is demonstrated in both paintings through the way that the bodies of water cut through the compositions, inferring its expansive quality. The fish market paintings, “Blue Crabs” and “Pompanos”, serve as a vignette of the larger global operation of commercial fishing. The all-over composition highlights the frenzied nature of such operations and alludes to the world outside of the market. These paintings aim to provoke questions about our relationship with the oceans and how such extractions are both harmful and beneficial to us.