Amy Banner Updegrove: Passing Beauty

Amy Banner Updegrove opens Passing Beauty at Davis Gallery on Thursday, September 10, with the show running through October 10. The opening reception is that first night, from 6 to 9 PM, and there's an artist talk scheduled for October 3 at 1:30 PM.

Updegrove is a native Texan who's spent time living and working in New York and Los Angeles, and she brings a background in media, design, and fashion to her studio practice. She's held leadership roles at Polo Ralph Lauren, Los Angeles Magazine, and Texas Monthly, and that eye for composition carries over into the work. These are tactile, three-dimensional collages built from mixed materials—paper, fabric, metal, acrylic, and leather—combining letterpress fonts, woven textiles, and grounding geometric forms. The compositions shift with light and perspective, playing between the natural and the man-made.

Passing Beauty comes from her meditation on the fleeting nature of beauty: the idea of one perfect moment, beauty at its peak, arriving after relentless pursuit and immediately beginning its decay. It's a specific kind of tension to hold in a single piece, and the physical materials—the rougher textures of leather and metal against the precision of letterpress—give that idea something to grip onto. The work is as much about the materials themselves as it is about the concept behind them.

If you want to hear her talk through the work in person, the artist talk is on Saturday, October 3, at 1:30 PM. Otherwise, you've got the full month to catch it. Davis Gallery & Framing is at 837 West 12th Street in Austin.