Churning Portent by Mystic Multiples

Churning Portent is an installation created by artist-collaborators Sarah Welch and James

Beard. This Houston-based duo has worked together for over a decade producing primarily

zines, comics, and printed ephemera under the imprint, Mystic Multiples. In recent years they’ve

turned their attention to multisensory installations about the precarity of life on the U.S. Gulf

Coast.

In “Churning,” the churn refers both to the water in the Gulf of Mexico during storms and the

agitation and disruption of our ecological balance writ large. The theatrical-style backdrop

paintings in this installation are Texas coastal landscapes and seascapes: the Queen Isabella

Causeway, the offshore oil platform, Perdido, a stretch of HWY-146, and a concrete rubble

seawall and pier in Seabrook, TX. Each location captures a portion of infrastructure which exists

for human access above or across stretches of water: transporting the body and industry

beyond the confines of land. These mammoth scale projects--which are now banal, everyday

scenes--are a representation of the ego, hubris, and folly of man. This spirit is hellbent on

touching every remote patch of island and taking what it will in the process– consequences be

damned.

The central sculpture, titled “Portent Siren,” is an amalgamation of the mythological mermaid.

This dour creature is our “portent.” She has risen from the pelagic depths as a supernatural,

folk-tale messenger warning us of devastation and seeking redress. She sits perched on a

mound of concrete sidewalk and building fragments which nod to makeshift coastal erosion

barriers and the inevitable entropy of all human empires.

About the Artists:

Sarah Welch is a Houston-based artist making work about the intersections between the built environment and nature. She is currently fixated on adversarial narratives betwixt humankind, plants, insects, and animals. Much of her work speculates on the possible futures of our US Gulf Coast region. She has participated in artist residency and study programs at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, and MacDowell. Welch has exhibited throughout the US, including exhibitions at Lawndale Art Center (Houston), Galveston Art Center, Antenna (New Orleans), and Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University (Tallahassee). She is a recipient of grants and support from The Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund Award (Dallas Museum of Art), The Houston Arts Alliance, and The Idea Fund (The Andy Warhol Foundation). Welch’s work is included in the City of Houston art collection on display at IAH Airport.

James Beard is the founder and master printer of Mystic Multiples, a letterpress and risograph

imprint located in Houston, Texas. He has over seventeen years of experience in commercial

and fine art printmaking, specializing in short run artist editions. He has participated in the artist

residency at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and is a frequent collaborator with his

creative partner, Sarah Welch. His current work experiments in ceramics and soundscapes for

the duo’s installations.