On view March 2024 at Mad.Kat Gallery and 120710 Gallery in Feb. 2024
“Muzzlers” is a series of oil portraits Houston undertook in 2017, based on original black and white photographs from police records archived at the San Francisco Public Library, where the artist has long held a day job. She discovered the images in mug books titled “Prostitution” and “Muzzlers” – slang for sex crimes. Each portrait is a diptych – front and side views – with the accused’s name and alleged violation burned into the side panels. Although the series harks to a time when sex workers were “low women” and gay men could be charged with “crimes against nature,” Houston’s light and sensuous impasto treatment performs a kind of literary time travel, drawing these individuals forward to a contemporary sensitivity, revealing and in a sense returning to them what the original arrest documentation took away – their essential humanness. Mixing subtle shadings of emotion – melancholy, remorse, shame, even defiance – with direct looks almost painful to meet, Houston creates a reckoning between subject and viewer: who’s judging whom?
“One hundred years before the selfie,” says Houston, “photography was an elaborate proposition and the demeanor of the suspects at that significant but unwelcome moment of the policeman’s shutter click is uniquely unmasking. I was struck by the difference in expressions in the frontal shots – pleading or defiant – and the more withdrawn introspection in the profile shots. I took pleasure in painting them, and in the process of discovering and getting to know these individuals. But more than that, I felt a sense of obligation.”
Shown at La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. April, 2017.
Studio Judy G, Watsonville, CA. July-Aug 2022.
San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St. SF CA. Mar-June 2023.
120710 Gallery, 1207 10th St. Berkeley, CA. Feb 3-Mar 2, 2024. ***
Mad.Kat Gallery, Rancho Mirage, CA. Mar 16-April 21, 2024. ###
For inquiries, please contact Penelope by email: penelope@penelope.net
All oil on panel, 30 x 30 x 4 cm, 2016/2017.
Carl Shogren, 20, 1920. ***
Carl Shogren, 20, 1920.***
Albert F. Herbold, 39, 1931.***
Albert F. Herbold, 39, 1931.***
Jean Harris, 23, 1938. ###
Jean Harris, 23, 1938. ###
Frederick C. Sherlow, 27, 1934. ###
Frederick C. Sherlow, 27, 1934. ###
Sarah Alexander, 21, 1938. ###
Sarah Alexander, 21, 1938. ###
Henry Friedrichs, 55, 1931. ###
Henry Friedrichs, 55, 1931. ###
Della Bohland, actress, 1919. ###
Della Bohland, actress, 1919. ###
Harry Kane, 52, 1921. ###
Harry Kane, 52, 1921. ###
Geli Madeline, 34, 1919. Sold
Geli Madeline, 34, 1919. Sold
William Williams, 1919. *** Sold
William Williams 1919. ***Sold
Grace McIntyre, 31, 1938. Sold
Grace McIntyre, 31, 1938. Sold
William Smith, 1919. Sold
William Smith, 1919. Sold
Gladys Hennessey, 42, 1938. *** Sold
Gladys Hennessey, 42, 1938. *** Sold
Carolynn Wells, 23, 1938. *** Sold
Carolynn Wells, 23, 1938. *** Sold
Chris Babeco, 32, 1921. Sold
Chris Babeco, 32, 1921. Sold
Connie Woods, 23, 1919. Sold
Connie Woods, 23, 1919. Sold
Alfred Jolliffe, 28, 1932. *** Sold
Alfred Jolliffe, 28, 1932. *** Sold
Babe Russell, a dancer, 1919. *** Sold
Babe Russell, a dancer, 1919. *** Sold
on the edges. Read more about these images on my blog.