Animal Crackers: New works by Jim Malone

“I got acquainted with the Chihuahua Desert about fifty years ago. Plants, animals, geology and history. All was fascinating and important for staying alive. Like any landscape with extremes, it’s dangerous. Since that time, I’ve used the desert as a subject for my art. It’s a difficult place but a healthy place, in that everything counts.” - Jim Malone


Artspace111 is proud to present the latest exhibition Animal Crackers, featuring mixed media artwork by Jim Malone. Malone’s knowledge of the Texas desert as a draftsman, depicts celestial and terrestrial landscapes working intuitively to find threads of meaning to link imagery that reveal a pattern. This exhibition dazzles the viewer with bright pops of neon color akin to the big Texas sky, peppered with wild horses, whimsical birds and land critters. Malone’s ode to the Texan desert speaks to what we can and can’t live without. In a world full of excess, Malone calls us back to the basics of survival, humility and love. His mixed media artworks contain graphite, spray paint, gold leaf and sparkle stars from local craft shops. He blends the sky and rock formations, while hyper imposing cut out animals into the work, which give his images an approachable, but surreal flare. Malone is refreshingly unpretentious and works from a flow state instead of being forced into an analytical frame of reference. In this way, the fitting title Animal Crackers brings light and brevity into the conversation of art. Using simple motifs of the desert as language transcends and is communicated into something one can only feel when verbal expression falls short.

Animal Crackers will be on view February 6 - March 15, 2025. Opening reception, Thursday, February 6, 5:30 - 7:30pm. Guests may also visit the gallery during regular hours, Tuesday – Friday 11am -5pm, and Saturday 11am -2pm.

“Jim Malone creates art that speaks to the specific experience of Texan’s love, fear and respect of the desert. But does it with his own visual voice and captivating mixed-media style that can only be commanded by Malone.” - Margery Gossett, Gallery Director.