Halles Art Barn Winter Debut: Featured Works by Steve Wrubel and Julia McLaurin to be Unveiled
Say howdy to Halles Art Barn, a creative space making its Round Top debut during the 2025 Winter Antiques & Design Show.

2025 Winter Show | January 23 – 26
2025 Spring Antiques Show | March 20 – April 6
2025 Fall Antiques Show | October 9 – 26
Say howdy to Halles Art Barn, a creative space making its Round Top debut during the 2025 Winter Antiques & Design Show.
Say howdy to a creative space making its Round Top debut during the 2025 Winter Antiques & Design Show. Halles Art Barn finds its home in Halle 9, one of the numerous vendor spaces at beloved Round Top venue The Halles.
The new gallery, directed by Round Top Show Guide’s Candice Cowin, is split between a pair of artistic entities: Steve Wrubel Collection and Texas Artists Today. The former will showcase a permanent installation of the noted Dallas photographer’s bronc-bustin’ Rodeo series. The latter, curated by PaperCity executive editor Catherine D. Anspon, will rotate exhibitions every two months, beginning with sculpture and photographs by Houston-based pop art icon Julia McLaurin.
Let’s dive deeper into Halles Art Barn.
California-raised and “Texas-braised,” Steve Wrubel spent 25 years in fine art and commercial photography before shifting to a career capturing images of his passion: the American Rodeo.
Wrubel’s work is part photographic and part surgical, taking the subjects of his images and superimposing them onto separate backdrops using digital techniques. In the artist’s Rodeo series, images of cowboys on bucking broncos are removed from the familiar backgrounds of cheering crowds, and recontextualized against rolling country plains and blue skies. With vibrant colors and remarkable clarity, these reimagined photos reveal “the beautiful dance that until now has remained hidden in the raucous nature of the sport,” reads a statement on the artist’s website.
Steve Wrubel’s “Cheyenne,” 2024, will be at Halles Art Barn: Steve Wrubel Collection
Steve Wrubel’s “Rio with Clouds,” 2024, will be at Halles Art Barn: Steve Wrubel Collection
Steve Wrubel’s “Rocker,” 2024, will be at Halles Art Barn: Steve Wrubel Collection
Steve Wrubel’s “Kaycee Field,” 2024, will be at Halles Art Barn: Steve Wrubel Collection
Steve Wrubel’s “Aurora,” 2024, will be at Halles Art Barn: Steve Wrubel Collection
Wrubel turned his focus toward the American Rodeo beginning in the summer of 2019, photographing ranches and national rodeo events including the Riggin’ Rally, the Gold Buckle Knockout, and the National Finals Rodeo. His quests have taken him through Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington — putting tens of thousands of miles on his Ford pick up truck on the way.
“I always have my camera in the passenger seat, ready to capture landscapes and dynamic cloud formations, which I sometimes use for the backgrounds in my art.” Wrubel said in a 2022 interview with PaperCity. “The drive is all part of it. I can’t imagine flying from state to state and town to town rather than driving every mile — looking, smelling, feeling, and touching the land and sky that is the American West.”
“Driving that land from state to state … allows me to feel a tiny bit of what the cowboys feel as they drive from city to city looking for those belt buckles. I think that’s an important part of understanding the look and feel of the culture I am striving to capture.”
The other half of Halles Art Barn is home to Texas Artists Today. The gallery is named after curator Catherine D. Anspon’s 2010 book of the same name, a survey of 62 leading contemporary talents in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Texas Artists Today will introduce a new artist to Round Top every two months, beginning with Houston-based neo-pop icon Julia McLaurin.
A ceramicist, sculptor, and self-proclaimed “Lisa Frank fanatic,” McLaurin creates witty, iconographic sculptures that celebrate the beauty of the ordinary. Giant emojis, frosted donuts, Whataburger hamburgers, Squishmallows, and even bottles of ranch dressing — recontextualized through clay — are her calling card. Through pop art, McLaurin invites viewers to experience whimsy and playfulness, qualities which she believes are desperately needed in today’s world.
“Pop art carries a certain rebellion against tradition,” McLaurin says. “There is a disruptive and innovative spirit to it. There is no need to constrain your ideas about what is ‘appropriate’ to make into art. Make whatever you want, and don’t worry about anything else.”
Julia McLaurin with “Super Ice Cream,” 2022 (Photo by Egidio Narvaez)
Julia McLaurin’s “Texas Sized Ranch,” 2022, will be at Halles Art Barn: Texas Artists Today (Photo by Egidio Narvaez)
Julia McLaurin’s “Cameron the Squishmallow,” 2024, will be at The Halles Art Barn: Texas Artists Today (Photo by Egidio Narvaez)
Julia McLaurin’s “Whataburger Meal,” 2022, will be at Halles Art Barn: Texas Artists Today (Photo by Egidio Narvaez)
Julia McLaurin’s “Super Donut,” 2022, will be at Halles Art Barn: Texas Artists Today (Photo by Egidio Narvaez)
Julia McLaurin’s “Pizza Emoji,” 2023, will be at Halles Art Barn: Texas Artists Today (Photo by Egidio Narvaez)
Houston Airport System’s Alton DuLaney with Julia McLaurin’s “100 Emojis” at Hobby Airport, now part of the Houston Airport System’s permanent collection (Courtesy the artist)
Despite being a lifelong creative, McLaurin’s career in art was far from linear. The sculptor actually comes from an extensive background in science, boasting two STEM degrees: a bachelors in psychology and biology, and a masters in cellular and molecular biology. Before pursuing art, she worked in the department of investigational therapeutics at MD Anderson and the center for immunology at Baylor College of Medicine. Now, she’s traded in her lab coat for an artist’s smock.
“I got it stuck in my head that ‘you couldn’t make money doing art,’” said McLaurin. “So I shifted gears to science at the University of Texas at Austin. But I was always making art. When my first daughter was born I thought, ‘Life is short. Now or never, go for your dreams.’”
See Steve Wrubel Collection and Texas Artists Today at Halles Art Barn, The Halles, 1465 N. Texas Highway 237. More on The Halles here and here.
2025 Winter Show | January 23 – 26
2025 Spring Antiques Show | March 20 – April 6
2025 Fall Antiques Show | October 9 – 26