Dreaming of green lace

Last Friday night we visited Dallas' Marty Walker Gallery with some friends. Marty was kind enough to host a private showing for the group, even greeting us at the front door with a bottle of wine. She's putting on a sale right now, and through this weekend, every painting is marked down. The first room is fantastic - were this not the summer of wedding recovery and a car purchase, we'd be all over this sale.


What really captivated me, though, was a painting framing the end of the hallway. I was too shy to take a photo of it, but days later, I still can't get it out of my head. The piece was one of Mark Flood's lace paintings. Flood is a Houston artist who shows his work everywhere from Texas to Greece. Using vintage textiles, Flood creates these dramatic pieces by applying lace to canvas, then painting, scrunching, folding, or tearing the lace, and finally peeling it back to reveal a print underneath. The pieces are intricate and bold at the same time. They're sexy as hell, too - a combustion of discreet lace and sometimes shocking color.

"My" piece, the one at the end of Marty's hallway, is probably five feet wide and ten feet tall. It's a cream canvas featuring dark green lace, and it's jaw-droppingly beautiful. It's also $15,000.

Unfortunately, we don't have an extra $15,000 to spare for green "lace" on canvas, nor do we have the appropriate showcase home/hitter apartment to be worthy of such gorgeousness on the wall. And since snapping photos seemed weird/touristy/out of place with our fellow wine drinkers/art minglers, I offer the following instead... a selection of Mark Flood's lace paintings that I found elsewhere on the web. I bet you haven't seen anything quite like them.

Red Nude, 2009. Source.

Dutchess, 2009. Source.

Magnet, 2002. Source.

Snapshot, 2002. Source.

Edge of the World, 2005. Source.

Brushstroke's Retirement Party, 2006. Source.

Paradisal Fragment, 2006. Source.

Peacock, 2005. Source.

Castle Ludwig, 2005. Source.

Rill, 2007. Source.

The Hookah, 2006. Source.

Sandcastle, 2004. Source.
(This is the other Mark Flood piece at the Marty Walker Gallery - it's beautiful in person. Just not my green lace.)

Dallas folks, why not go visit my green lace in person? The Marty Walker Gallery is located just outside the Design District, and Marty's sale runs through Saturday. She's an excellent hostess.