Artist Statement
Cindee Travis Klement (b. 1957, Dell City/El Paso, Texas) lives and works in Houston.
My work lives at the intersection of the natural world, conservation history, and the question of how we build connections between people and the living world.
I make art the way an ecosystem functions — nothing in isolation, everything in relation — moving across welded steel, brick, paper, video, and the land itself, shaped less by a single medium than by a single question: what does it take to connect cities to the living world?
That question grew out of three encounters — the wind- and soil-erosion-scarred West Texas, the devastation Hurricane Harvey left behind in Houston, and the moment the first bee was listed as an endangered species. Each one opened a door. Behind it were systems theory, holism, regeneration — they gave me a way to see, to talk about our relationship with natural systems, and inspired my passion for change.
In the desertified landscape of West Texas, once tall-grass prairie, the rains no longer soaked into the compressed soil — water ran across the surface with nowhere to go. Living in Houston’s coastal prairie during Hurricane Harvey, I witnessed the same thing: our policy-shaped landscapes of lawn and hardscape had forgotten how to drink, shedding water like a desert rather than absorbing it and returning it to the system.
One body of work led to the next — soil health to native plants, biodiversity to water, individual action to collective change. The threads kept finding each other. My work explores how we bring natural systems back into everyday landscapes. If humans are part of nature, then the systems we make are part of nature too.
I don’t make art about problems. I make art about possibility — drawing on real stories of conservation and restoration to remind us that repair, when we choose it, is already underway.
Klement was awarded the 2026 Houston Endowment Jones Artist Award for a one-person show. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner proclaimed August 24, 2021, as “Cindee Klement Day” in recognition of her work revitalizing the community through art and ecological restoration. She was named a finalist for the Artadia Awards in 2020 and 2021. Cindee is a member of Throughline Art Collective. Klement completed the BLOCK Program at the Glassell School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2018.
Symbiosis
2021 Lawndale Art Center
image by Jake Eshelman
My Carbon Story
I spent my early years in Dell City, far west Texas. The land was dry, cracked, and brown. The water ran across the surface and never soaked in. In season the wind and dust were relentless — you couldn’t see and you couldn’t escape it. Once, my parents came home to find two feet of sand in the house. I thought that was just how the West was.
The need to create has always been a characteristic of my personality that I cannot turn off — it finds its way into every aspect of my life. Through my twenties, thirties, and forties — graphic design, murals, construction, remodeling old homes, designing furniture, light fixtures and sinks from scratch — I loved making.
I moved to Houston in my forties. Through the MFAH Glassell Block Program, I found my visual language and learned how to talk about my work. About time and movement. But my passion was about healthy food, soil, and regeneration.
Hurricane Harvey opened the door. I spent a year and a half making work about the heroes who saved people. Then I started making monoprints of bees falling — and spent a year learning that we are worried about the wrong bee. That led to native plants. Native plants led to soil. Soil led to water. A visit to Roam Ranch taught me about holism and regeneration. Lawndale gave me the opportunity to try it in a city without bison. That is the question my work keeps asking — what does regeneration look like when we are the dominant species?
It was during the Harvey recovery that it dawned on me — Houston’s landscape makes it respond to rainwater like a desert. Two landscapes. One failure. West Texas and Houston are the same system at different stages.
Houston is projected to double in size by 2050. That is not a burden. It is an opportunity — my work is about making that visible.
CV
COLLECTIONS
2025 -Gordian Real Estate
2019 -Houston Flood Museum, https://houstonfloodmuseum.org/hurricane-harvey-heroes-and-humanity/
2014 -Portable Works Collection, George Bush International Airport, Houston, TX
AWARDS
2026 -Houston Endowment Jones Artist Award - Solo exhibition.
2024 -Soil Centric, Regenerative Action Ambassador.
2023 -Cabinet Oak Project, Juror's Award, and the People’s Choice Award.
2022 -The Houston Garden Club Grant — Lawndale Art Center on behalf of Symbiosis.
2021 -Houston Artadia Finalist
-City’s Initiative Grant— Lawndale Art Center on behalf of Symbiosis.
-Houston Mayor Turner Proclamation: August 24, 2021, Cindee Klement Day for revitalizing the
community through art and conservation.
2020 -Houston Artadia Finalist
-Scholarship, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
2018 -Merit award - 41st International WaterMedia Exhibition: Water Color Art Society - Houston, TX
2017 -2nd in Show - Conroe Art League Invitational, Conroe, TX
-Honorable Mention - BUILD National Juried Exhibition, Ciel Gallery, Charlotte, NC
-Selected into the MFAH BLOCK XVI studio program
-Scholarship, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
SOLO EXHIBITION
2026 - Houston Endowment Jones Award, Unfolding Hope, May 26- September 18.
2024 -City Center, Houston, Texas, Curated by - -
-Weingarten Art Group, Rumblings.
-Monterroso Gallery at the Crimson, Transient States.
2020-23 -Lawndale Art Center, Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden, Symbiosis
-GroundWORK.
-water + air + citizens.
-Carbon by The Yard.
-CARBONsink.
-Peck + Scratch.
-Friends and Family, tree giveaway.
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
2026 -throughline art collective, The Circle and The Circle, May 15 - June 13.
2025 -Craft Texas 2025, Houston Center For Contemporary Craft.
-Glassell School of Art, 10th anniversary of the Block Program Exhibition.
2024 -San Jacinto College, Flickinger Fine Arts Gallery, Solastalgia.
-FotoFest, Troubling Boundaries.
-2D meets 3D, Monterroso Gallery.
-throughline collective, Collaborative immersive installation with JRR Roykovich, Potentia // Actualitas
-City Center, Houston Texas
-Throughline Volume Two: RUN
2023 -The Big Show, Lawndale Art Center, Juror Dr. Kanitra Fletcher. June 1 - August 18, 2023
-Cabinet Oak Project, LBJ Ranch
2022 -Feral Atlas Exhibition, Climate Justice Museum, Rice University May – September.
- Craft Sawed, Soldered, Constructed: The Works of Houston Metal Arts Guild, Houston Center for
Contemporary Craft.
- Houston Forever, Mayors Office of Cultural Affairs, Prauper Studios, ArtHouston Magazine, and
The Nash.
-Blue Norther, Curated by Bradley Sumerall of the Ogden Museum and John Alexander.
2021 -Sculpture Month Houston, Endangered Knowledge: The Soul of Humus.
-Save the Planet — 2021, Gallerium Art Exhibitions.
-The Big Show, Lawndale Art Center, Juror Cecilia Fajardo-Hill. June 18 - August 14, 2021
-EXTINCTION: Save the Planet 2021, Book of Arts and Exhibition.
2020 -44nd International WaterMedia Exhibition: Water Color Art Society-Houston.
2019 -Sculpture Month Houston, Outta Space, SITE Gallery Houston in The Silos at Sawyer Yards,
October 11- November 30, 2019
-Sixth Annual Artspace111 Regional Juried Exhibition, Ft. Worth, TX
Juror – Hilde Nelson, curatorial assistant for Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art
-Glade Arts Foundation, 51.88”: From the Depths, Three Artists Respond to Hurricane Harvey
-42nd International WaterMedia Exhibition: Water Color Art Society-Houston
2018 -Kinder Morgan Exhibition, Music Visualizations, November 30 - March 1, 2019
-The 13th Annual Open Call Exhibition, Animals, Art Car Museum, December 8, - February 24, 2019
-BLOCK XVII, MFAH Glassell Studio School, 5101 Montrose, Houston, TX
Curated by Joe Havel
-Fifth Annual Artspace111 Regional Juried Exhibition, Ft. Worth, TX
Juror – Christina Rees, Editor-in-Chief of Glasstire
-Kinder Morgan Exhibition, Creatures Exhibition
-41st International WaterMedia Exhibition: Water Color Art Society-Houston
2017 -BLOCK XVIII, Williams Tower Gallery, Houston, TX
-The Art Cycle Project, “Trump This”, Art Car Museum, Houston, TX
-Nos Caves Vin, one person show, September - December
-Arts Brookfield, known and unknown, Allen Center, September - November
-Superstructures, Print Houston, Interspace Gallery, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-Student Show, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-BLOCK XVII, Interspace Gallery, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-Texas National 2017, SFA Galleries, Nacogdoches,TX
Juror – Benito Huerta, artist and curator of the Gallery at UTA
-Line, Kinder Morgan, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
2016 -Student Show, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-Moments that Matter, Impasto Art Gallery, Longmont, CO
Juror -Barbara A. Mac Adam Co-Executive Editor of ARTNews
-Regional Juried Exhibition, Houston Metal Arts Guild, Jung Center, Houston, TX
-Build, National Juried Exhibition, Ciel gallery, Charlotte, NC, Juror – Murray Whisnant, FAIA
-Bank of the Arts National Juried Exhibition, Craven Arts Council Gallery, New Bern, NC
Juror – Larry Wheeler, Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art
-3rd Regional Juried Exhibition, Artspace111, Fort Worth, TX
Juror - Eric Lee, Director of the Kimbell Art Museum
2015 -Kinder Morgan Exhibition, Student Show, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-Student Show, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
2014 -Kinder Morgan Exhibition, Student Show, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-Student Show, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
-Another Layover, Houston Arts Alliance Gallery
EDUCATION
2025 Ecosystem Restoration , Dr. Elaine R. Ingham, Soil Food Web School.
2016-2018 BLOCK Program, MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
2013-2018 MFAH Glassell School of Art, Houston, TX
1974-1978 Graphic Design, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-Soil Turns: A Field Guide to Earthly Engagements, ecoartspace, 2025, p. 165
-Southwest Contemporary, Vol. 11, Natalie Hegert, The Hyperlocal, 2025
-National Wildlife Federation, Jennifer Wehunt, Artist Cindee Klement Builds Buzz for Native Bees, Fall 2023
-Plantings, World Sensorium/Conservancy, Jake Eshelman, The Ecological Impact and Potential of the American Lawn, Issue 25-2023
-Austin American-Statesman, Michael Barnes, Bid on art made from a branch of the Cabinet Oak that stands at the LBJ Ranch, May 2, 2023
-Soil Centric, Judith Schwartz, Artists Bringing Ecosystems Into Balance, June 16, 2022
-Texas Monthly, Molly Glentzer, Build a Life-size Bison or Die Trying, February 8, 2022
-Art Houston, Haley Berkman Karren, Sculpture Month Houston Festival, Altimira 2021, Fall issue 13, p.36-37
-Houston Chronicle, Molly Glentzer, Here are the Houston artists that won some of the biggest art prizes this year, January 13, 2021
-Glasstire, Christopher Blay, Artadia, Houston Announces 2020 Finalists for Its Two-Artist $10,000 Award, December 22, 2020
-Houston Chronicle, Molly Glentzer, Sculpture Month Houston Gets Spacey, November 15-21, 2019, p. D23-24
-Glasstire, Top Five: 1. Outta Space, October 10, 2019
-Art Houston, Sabine Casparie, After Harvey, Spring Summer issue 08, p.36
-Houston Chronicle, Molly Glentzer, A woman’s place is in the museum, November 25, 2018, p. G2
-Texas Highways, Gene Fowler, Flights of Fancy, May 2018, vol. 65 issue 5, p.14.
-VoyageHouston Staff, (2018, March 28). Check out Cindee Travis Klement’s Artwork . VoyageHouston,
retrieved from http://voyagehouston.com/interview/check-cindee-travis-klements-artwork/
-Bridgette, Mongeon, 3D Technology In Fine Art and Craft, Focal Press 2016, p. 255-6, 273, 300
-Ekphrasis 2016, Ekphrast Poetry and the Art That Inspired it from the 2016 Bank Of The Arts
National Juried Exhibition, p. 37
