Five years ago the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau launched the My Houston campaign. They asked the city's celebrity sons and daughters what they love about Houston, and the unscripted results ran in a highly successful print and broad-cast campaign. On the five-year anniversary of that initiative and the 50th anniversary of their organization, they sought to reimagine the campaign through the eyes of local residents who are moving the city forward in imaginative ways. They brought together chefs, artists, performers and others who make the city a dynamic place. The GHCVB worked with those involved in the key industries-food and the arts-to develop a list of potential "cast members." Award-winning Houston photographer Julie Soefer and set designer Maggi Poorman developed and executed a vision for each shoot. 

The ads have been featured in the national editions of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and regionally in
Texas Monthly, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Forbes, Fortune and Cooking Light.

For more details, please visit visithoustontexas.com/inspired and houstonisinspired.com! 

Read Mie's new interview with The Huffington Post and view a slideshow retrospective of her career here.

 Click here to read the latest review of Mie Olise's new exhibition, this time at the Houston Press!

Click here to read the brilliant review from Geoff Smith in A+C Magazine Houston!

Click here to read Tyler Rudick's review of the show at CultureMap Houston.

Barbara Davis Gallery is proud to announce the upcoming solo-exhibition by Danish artist Mie Olise entitled Crystal Bites of Dust, opening Friday, January 11, 2013, with an artist reception from 6:30 – 8:30pm. 

For this exhibition, Danish artist Mie Olise unveils her exploration of the Gowanus Canal in the New York City borough of Brooklyn through a series of new paintings that investigate the impact of industrialism on the surrounding area. Laden with desolation and abandonment, Olise viewed the Gowanus Canal as a subject worth reviving and uplifting, as her paintings romanticize the seemingly forgotten monuments, factories, and landscapes. Inspired by Robert Smithson’s article “Monuments of the Passaic,” published in 1967 in ArtForum, Olise recreates his journey along the Hackensack River in New Jersey. As Smithson traveled west of Manhattan, toward the Passaic bridges of New Jersey, describing the decaying monuments and ruins near the Hackensack River, Olise journeyed east to Brooklyn and found a similar situation surrounding the Gowanus Canal. Smithson documented his voyage with an Instamatic 400 and referred to the deserted locations he photographed as “non-spaces.” Olise mirrors his concept by illustrating the scenery of the Gowanus Canal through a series of monumental paintings, in order to find what she calls the empty “pores” of the city, spaces left behind to fall into dust. Olise examines the monuments of Gowanus, the hidden spaces beneath the bridges, the uninhabited factories, and the polluted waters of the canal, and ultimately gives them new life by painting them, thus solidifying their existence and transforming them into “crystals of industrialization.” 

See Danny Rolph's Cardinal EESE featured on the cover of Arts + Culture magazine here! 

Click here to view Danny Rolph's exhibition DUKE OF BURGUNDY featured in Art Ltd. Magazine!