James Bettison

American
(1957–1997)

Reins Released
1986

Assemblage painting, mixed media
28.5 x 49.75 x 3.75 in.
Gift of the Kathryn C. Wanlass Foundation
2021.3

The title of Bettison’s Reins Released has been taken from a poem by Sabine Hilding, which Bettison has inscribed in pencil across the elaborate wooden structure of the piece. Bettison plays off of Hilding’s language in the painting at the center of the piece. With other fellow artists, Bettison helped found Project Row Houses in Houston in 1993. PRH is a very successful project that took derelict houses in a poor section of Houston and transformed them into housing for artists, young mothers, and small businesses that restored and socially rejuvenated the area.

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This object has the following keywords:

• assemblage
• blue
• fish
• green
• river
• text
• tree
• water - A liquid made up of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen (HO2). When pure, it is colorless, tasteless, and odorless. It exists in gaseous, liquid, and solid forms; it is liquid at room temperature. It is the liquid of which seas, lakes, and rivers are composed, and which falls as rain. Water is one of the most plentiful and essential of compounds. It is vital to life, participating in virtually every process that occurs in plants and animals. One of its most important properties is its ability to dissolve many other substances. The versatility of water as a solvent is essential to living organisms. The term "water" is typically used to refer to the liquid form of this compound; for the solid or gaseous forms, use "ice" or "water vapor."
• wood

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• African American Art, Social Justice, and Identity , 8/25/2020 - 5/7/2022