Local artist and professor, Justin Korver’s new exhibit defines gender norms.

In San Antonio, there are a variety of museums that display great works of art from before our time. Big name artists seem to take the spotlight off the modern, experimental and emerging artists of the world.  Many of these up and coming artists walk the streets every day, and we don’t even realize it. Many of these artists are showcased in small local galleries or at pop-up events around the city.

This weekend on Nov. 10, Flax studio is participating in the Second Saturday Art Walk and will be showcasing local artist Justin Korver’s new collection “The Difference Between a Flower and a Weed is Seeing.”

Katy Silva, owner of Flax studio, launched this space in January of 2016 to place focus on emerging creative talent in the San Antonio area. With a background in nonprofit marketing and with her current marketing and advertising job at the Rivard Report, Silva was inspired to start her studio space.

As a painter herself, Silva is otherwise taken with performance art and sculpture. Due to her interest in sculpture, she took a fast liking to the work of UTSA graduate Justin Korver.

“I’m a huge fan of his work. He’s painterly in some regards, but I was really interested in his use of materials and topics of femininity, gender and identity,” Silva said, speaking about their upcoming show together.

Korver’s previous work incorporates the use of tools and industrial materials making connections to masculinity in objects. The upcoming show is moving in a slightly new direction according to Silva, with many layers of different issues in this new collection. There will be a few works on paper, embroidery pieces and an extension of his work with tools and feminine color palettes.

The title Korver chose for this show, “The Difference Between a Flower and a Weed is Seeing” had “an immediate positive connotation” to Silva. She said, “It’s about outlook, and that is what art is all about; because it is so subjective, and it is the viewer’s choice to decide if it is a flower or a weed, positive or negative, masculine or feminine.”

In Korver’s statement of his previous collection “The Expressive Mark & Other Ideas I Stole From Painting” he says, “I’m interested in tools because they are extensions of us, and like the things we surround ourselves with, they act as still life. These tools are meant to express an absent subject. We may, therefore, invent our own subject or possibly become the subject of these types of still life.”

The use of paint within his work transforms these tools to be “passive, decorative, pretty.” In his statement on his collection “Accessories of Modern Men” Korver says “within my work I create a set of surrogate objects that allow for discuss or reformulate the masculine.” His focus lies on the American standard of masculinity to be defined by the active male body and how to reinterpret these ideals.

This new collection, expanding on his focus on gender will open at 6p.m. on Nov. 11 at Flax studio, which is located at 1906 Flores Street. Both Silva and Korver will be at the event to discuss and answer questions about Korver’s art.

This event will be free and open to the public, as Silva’s goal is to expand the public’s knowledge on local artists and emerging talent within San Antonio.

The San Antonio art community is overflowing with talent and variety, and the Second Saturday Art Walk is the perfect time to go out, experience art and interact with artists unlike your typical museum experience.