Current
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Living History
Photography Exhibition by Elizabeth Bick 15 Nov 2024 - 19 Jan 2025 Read more -
Women's Work
Featuring work by Christa Stephens and Christine Sullivan 15 Nov 2024 - 19 Jan 2025 In the realm of contemporary art, the narratives woven through fiber arts, stitching, and collage have often been sidelined, dismissed as “too decorative” or “not serious enough.” Yet, this exhibition, “Women’s Work,” seeks to illuminate the profound and transformative power these mediums hold. Curated by Christa Stephens and Cristine Sullivan,... Read more -
Holiday Group Show
Featuring a Collection of Works 15 Nov 2024 - 19 Jan 2025 As the year draws to a close, we invite you to celebrate the spirit of creativity and community at our annual holiday group show. This exhibition features a diverse array of both familiar and new voices, showcasing the vibrant tapestry of artistic expression that defines our gallery. This exhibition is... Read more
Past
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Instances of the Primitive: Moons, Monoliths, Reflected Moonbeams & Shields
Paintings by Charles Gurd 10 Oct - 10 Nov 2024 “Instances of The Primitive; Moons, Monoliths, Reflected Moonbeams & Shields” - at Aurelia Gallery, Santa Fe, showcases recent work which explores the expression of a collective deep subconscious. This work, like my other paintings and photographs is non-representational/abstract. For me, form is less important than substance, there is something more... Read more -
All About Color
Paintings by Ellen Koment 10 Oct - 10 Nov 2024 Having grown up in Coney Island, I always knew that life could be fun. And then came painting, the great adventure of my life. Through painting with oil paint and acrylic, through painting figures and landscapes, my painting has always been there. And then, one day, some wax crossed my... Read more -
Two Minds
works by Tanner Valant 20 Sep - 6 Oct 2024 In my work, I explore the complex personalities and emotions found in humanity. As people, we experience beautiful, spiritual, pure moments where we can express love, gratitude, and affection to others and the world around us. On the other hand, we can stray from this positive path, lose our true... Read more -
Conversations with the Desert
Works by Onna Voellmer 31 Aug - 6 Oct 2024 Each work in this room is a conversation with the desert—and I invite you to join in this conversation. How does the desert speak to you? How has this place become you, changed you? Has it grown into you? Or have you grown into it? How do you connect to... Read more -
The Center of the Circle
Photographs by Elizabeth Bick 23 Aug - 6 Oct 2024 After a childhood dedicated to training in dance, I discovered a choreographic voice through photography. When I was no longer an object of observation and became an audience member through the camera, I was able to explore unlikely spaces of performance in the world. I am particularly drawn to spaces... Read more -
Modular Concepts
Works by Christa Stephens 15 Aug - 6 Oct 2024 Modular Concepts is a solo exhibition of new works by artist Christa Stephens. In this exhibit, Stephens uses modularities of geometric forms to invite viewers on a colorful voyage through intersections of meaning, method, and materiality. Through this collection of abstract painting, collage, and mixed-media works, audiences can explore playful,... Read more -
Riddles of Reverences
Works by Rowan Mastandrea 13 Jun - 11 Aug 2024 Complex conversations between pattern, color and nature reveal interrelated and overlapping realities, and provide one’s own perceptual experiences. This complex dialogue is built through slow emergent structuring, until the static properties of pictorial exploration reveal a mystical dimensionality that supports, elevates, and explains the enduring wisdom dormant in nature. When... Read more -
The Density of Time (Revisited), Technicians of the Sacred
Photographs by Blaine Ellis 13 Jun - 11 Aug 2024 Aurelia Gallery is excited to welcome back Blaine Ellis. A dedicated photographer and scholar, he spent 40 years studying and photographing sacred architecture in Portugal, Spain, Southern Italy, Istanbul, and Cappadocia. His focus lies in capturing the natural illumination of preindustrial sacred spaces. Through his black and white images, he... Read more -
Botanicals in Blue
Botanical Cyanotype X-Rays by Bryan Whitney 4 Apr - 2 Jun 2024 Botanicals in Blue presents a collection of new work that combines my extensive exploration of X-ray imaging with the 19th-century Cyanotype process. Both photographic techniques are camera-less and intertwine the realms of science, art, and technology. X-ray images with their diaphanous monochrome tones, offer a glimpse into the inner structures... Read more -
Continuity
Encaustic Paintings by Karine swenson 4 Apr - 2 Jun 2024 At times, it is such a wonder the way life goes on. A loved one dies. You move to another place. Something unmoors you. The familiar becomes foreign, and yet the sun comes up, moves across the sky and sets once more. You might think everything will stop, but it... Read more -
Transcendent Fields
Brooks Williams’ Dimensional Photomashes in Lenticular, Paper and Aluminum 8 Feb - 31 Mar 2024 “Transcendent Fields” is a reflection of inner realities. It urges the viewer to ask: What is the reality of our natural world? Memory is unreliable andreality is malleable. Here, Williams collaborates with the universe.Williams’ art emanates a surreal essence, crafted with the aid of computers using both custom and commercial... Read more -
Road Signs in Designer Colors
Works by William Greiner 8 Feb - 31 Mar 2024 William Greiner lived in Fort Worth, TX for a number of years. In an adjoining neighborhood, there was a traffic circle that caught his attention, particularly the elaborate directional sign on the road before it. Greiner developed a fascination with the traffic circle and the sign, even feeling a sense... Read more -
NOSTALGIA (Natsukashii [nat-soo-kash-ee] – People use this word when remembering with fondness and feelings of warmth ev
Works by Photographer David Joseph 8 Feb - 31 Mar 2024 'As an artist I manipulate color, composition, and focus to create images that feel three dimensional . My images challenge the viewer’s perception of everyday objects and locations. I shoot all my images without people in the frame, to remove any hint that might date the image, which adds to... Read more -
Colors Gone Wild
Aurelia Gallery Holiday Show 7 Dec 2023 - 4 Feb 2024 Step into a world of creativity that knows no boundaries, a world where imagination runs wild. Introducing 'Colors Gone Wild,' a captivating group holidays show that pushes the boundaries of artistic expression. This extraordinary exhibition brings together a collective of current and new Aurelia Gallery artists who fearlessly explore the... Read more -
The Mystery of Color
New Paintings by Ellen Koment 5 Oct - 3 Dec 2023 I have painted all my life, with the figure as a resource, with the landscape as a resource, and simply with a love of color and form. Twenty years ago a little wax crossed my path, and a new chapter opened as I began exploring the ancient art of encaustic.... Read more -
Felt: Unraveling Social Norms
Works by Christine Sullivan 5 Oct - 3 Dec 2023 Christine Sullivan, a multidisciplinary and conceptual artist, uses wool felt to transcend its humble origins and become a vehicle for challenging, subverting, and reimagining the most entrenched societal norms and icons. Sullivan blends the tactile warmth of felt with the power of visual language. Through paint, screenprint, and fiber, she... Read more -
PATTERNS & POLYPHONIES, CHRISTA STEPHENS
A POP-UP EXHIBITION AND COMMUNITY RECEPTION BENEFITING AUTISM SOCIETY NEW MEXICO 15 - 17 Sep 2023 The work of Christa Stephens, an award-winning Santa Fe artist who is autistic, will be featured in Patterns & Polyphonies, a pop-up solo exhibition at Aurelia Gallery, September 15-17. In conjunction with the exhibit, a reception is planned for Saturday, September 16, to engage the community in a conversation about... Read more -
A Fire Racing Under The Skin
Paintings by Kenneth Susynski 3 Aug - 1 Oct 2023 Kenneth Susynski presents a unique, hybrid style of figurative expressionism blended with the abstract in narrative compositions that stress an interpretation of beauty, with a hint of wit, exploring combinations of historical and contemporary cultural themes. Having been raised primarily in Europe yet also in Turkey and Korea, the... Read more -
The Edge of Wildness
Photographs by Jason Poole 3 Aug - 1 Oct 2023 Our long held illusions of dominion over and separation from the natural world have led us to build the artificial constructs of our global civilization. Now as these man-made systems of exploitation begin to unravel, we find ourselves unable to contend with the consequences of the anthropocene. We are angry... Read more -
Works In Light
Michael Crawford 16 Jun - 29 Jul 2023 Light touches. It goes in and stays, or bounces off, leaving colors behind. It goes through and twists and bends. Michael E Crawford is a pioneer in light-in-space, using elemental light — a pure thin beam of one-color light, holographic techniques, and handmade light-sensitive emulsion on glass, to create forms... Read more -
A Stone Odyssey, 80 Years On ...
Sculptures by Kenneth Smith 1 Jun - 30 Jul 2023 Ken Smith, a descendent of Russian Jews, was a child prodigy of art from Bronx, New York. He is a painter and cartoonist, a husband, father and grandfather, a Vietnam Veteran, a medical illustrator, a retired naval Commander, a general surgeon and a reconstructive plastic surgeon. And now, over the last 37 years, he returned to his roots as an artist … as a sculptor of stone. “For me, carving stone, making a stone sculpture is a transient romance. The process is full of expectations, followed by uncovering unknown mysteries, and at the end of the courtship, finding reality. The reality may be wonderful or tragic, but always a reward for the effort that was undertaken.” On a trip to Santa Fe in 1985, “I fell in love with the clarity of the light and the architectural style caught my attention”. In 2012 Ken made his home in Santa Fe. “There is nothing I enjoy more than stone sculpting under the unique lighting of the blue northern New Mexico skies”. A Stone Odyssey is a series of deep emotional journeys captured in stone to be explored, treasured and remembered. Read more -
Urban Landscapes
Paintings by Daniel Blagg 30 Mar - 30 Jul 2023 A well-known figure of the contemporary Fort Worth art scene, Daniel Blagg has worked in the DFW area for over four decades. Blagg creates compositions that are both large-scale and intimate, familiar and unfamiliar, through his realistic style and chosen subject matter. Inspired by the surroundings of his studio warehouse... Read more -
The Tipping Point
Work by New Mexico Artist L. Scooter Morris 30 Mar - 28 May 2023 The project I am working on is called, Tipping Point. The Sculpted Paintings in this project are based on the political issues that affect everyone. Yet, after the most recent decisions, I am expanding the premise to include the very harsh reality facing women at this time. This includes a women’s right to choose, equal pay, and simply, the right to have an equal place in the world.
Women have the distinction of weaving the world together without receiving the credit for their time, talent or ability. We toil to be accepted as equal and until recently our efforts are seen as less than any man.
Many of my paintings are seen as political images, but I strive to create work that speaks to all of our collective struggles as humans in a complicated world.
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Bricolage Unbridled!
Constructing artifacts 30 Mar - 28 May 2023 I haven’t found a word that describes my art and process more accurately than
bricolage. Bricolage is derived from the French verb bricoler ("to tinker") that refers to the
remixture, reconstruction, and reuse of objects to produce new meaning, insight
and perhaps, a new cultural identity. A bricoleur is a person who engages in
bricolage.
Informed by a youth spent in farm shops, decades in advertising and publishing,
forays into countless galleries and museums both in the US and abroad, I’ve
collected memories and experiences that I use to construct ideas/concepts into
three-dimensional forms that would challenge conventional language.
For me, the process is like writing poetry, “Do I use a rusty screw or a brass one?
“Do I use a period or a line break?”
A piece is complete when nothing can be added or removed without changing the
intended meaning. I like for my works to have layers and to reward you if you are willing to spend
some time getting to know them and to engage in a dialogue. Hopefully, the
conversation takes you to an unexpected destination that you didn’t realize you
want to go. Read more -
Spontaneous Inspiration - Finding the Flow
Michael Deen 26 Jan - 26 Mar 2023 “Art has always been therapy for me, putting something down on canvas, building it up, tearing it down, layers upon layers until the right “mistake” makes the whole thing come together. That is a good day.
I see beauty everywhere, I look at the walls of old buildings, or old trucks and marvel at the decay, much like the paintings of Anselm Kiefer that are so powerful. The process is what it is all about for me. Art is personal. If someone connects with something I create that is a bonus.” - Michael Deen Read more -
Freed From Rage and Sorrow
Reflections of Emptiness in the American Dream 26 Jan - 26 Mar 2023 Freed From Rage and Sorrow: Reflections of Emptiness in the American Dream is twenty years of photographic work. Captured on black and white film and printed three ways; traditional, contemporary and mixed media, the project is an autobiographical story of self-realization; an investigative journey into the past, present and future. The haunting photographs of nature are symbols, field notes and mnemonic devices for a map of knowledge the artist sought to document. Read more -
Cascades
Ellen Koment 20 Oct - 4 Dec 2022 Ten or so years ago, I began pouring on paper. Pouring on paper doesn’t give much time for reflection, it has to be a process by which you trust yourself. The process allows you to work with multiple layers which combine to tell your story. But there is little ability to turn back, so you have to be absolutely present to the process. The wax is mutable, fluid and responsive. The wax sings your song and resists control, although control is entirely possible. It bends to your ways and leads you down new paths. And then, I have tried to bring some of the spontaneity of the pours onto panels. Where there is more room to negotiate, where you can more readily make changes.
In New Mexico, the landscape is always an inspiration, the vastness of it, and the amazing light and skies. All of which of course affected the paintings that I began to do. All of it was always something that I could bring to my painting. At first as actual landscapes, and then as an abstraction and understanding of the effect of light on all that I see, and on the work that I do. Encaustic allows a fluidity and containment of light.
But most importantly, to me, what I got to write in my afterward to Encaustic Art in the 21c, by Ashley Rooney: In part I wrote:
“We look for images from within and even more frequently look at the real world and translate what we see through our own vision. We take inspiration from the visual world, from the landscape, from other artists, from all the experiences of our lives. Somehow it is filtered through us to become our imagery. We go out to seek it, to photograph or draw from the land, from models, from architecture, and what we each take from it is something different. We go to see great art. We read wonderful books or hear moving music, and we never really know if what we see or what we hear is the same as others experience. It is filtered through who we are. There is no objectivity in perception or in our responses to the world.”
And so the paintings emerge. Read more -
Perceptual Abstractions: Field Theories From the Autism Spectrum
Christa Stephens 20 Oct - 4 Dec 2022 Perceptual Abstractions: Field Theories From the Autism Spectrum is an exhibition of geometric paintings by Santa Fe artist Christa Stephens. Drawing upon the complex intellectual processes of her neurodivergence, these works utilize elemental shapes and patterns to describe the life spaces of an artist who transmutes sensory experiences into carefully rendered abstract compositions. The exhibit presents an overview of paintings from the past five years, juxtaposing large-scale recent works with earlier minimal renderings, and reflects the artist’s engagement with mid-century Hard-edge Painting and Post Painterly Abstraction.
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The Evolution of Matter
Mario Quilles 20 Oct - 4 Dec 2022 Millions of years ago the earth was covered with ice. Many years later the ice melted and the earth was covered with water. Beneath the surface of that water there were “forms," forms of different shapes, forms of many colors. It is in those "forms" that I found inspiration for all that I do, including the ceramic sculptures in this show. Some years ago a friend’s ten-year-old son said to me “These pieces look like they came out of the ocean.” Yes, they do.
Although I was given clay to play with as a child, it was really during the second half of my life that I began to grow, and my artwork and the materials I use would take form. At first I was an art director in New York City. I was also among the first artists to work out of a loft in Soho, way back when. In the end, though, ceramics won.
I roll my clay out on rubber mats, with texture that will be on the outside, although the pieces are built from the inside out. My glazes are airbrush gradations blending various colors for the effects I have in mind. Occasionally I work with Raku. But the inspiration, which is most important, comes from those most ancient times. The forms and colors talk to me, they tell me what they want to be.
It gives me great joy to do this work, and I hope you enjoy seeing it as well. Read more -
Movement Studies/Coda
Elizabeth Bick 1 Sep - 16 Oct 2022 After a childhood dedicated to training in dance, I discovered a choreographic voice through photography.
I photograph found urban facades that I position as stages, and pedestrians as performers – some consciously staged; most unconsciously so. I am particularly drawn to spaces and people that are naturally theatrical. The subjects are sharply frozen in the pictures through the use of a very fast shutter speed. Through this stilling, dress, body movement and backdrop transcend the quotidian urban space into that of an operatic performance piece. Ten works in the show reflect new works from this decade-long pursuit.
Additionally, four still lives are on display. In 2015, I had a chance encounter on the subway with Linda Leven. Linda is visually striking, an active writer, actress, model, and muse. After meeting, Linda and I developed a highly collaborative relationship over the years. She has been in isolation since February 2020 due to her compromised immune system. Our phone conversations often reflect on her younger years and her large archive of photographs taken by her many lovers who saw her as a muse. Since we were no longer able to meet and photograph her, she allowed me to photograph her archive, mostly from over half a century ago.
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Colors
Eddie Lee 14 Jul - 22 Aug 2022 Eddie Lee has been making prints for over 25 years. He started out as a letterpress printer. Most recently Eddie has developed a new technique, using sheet magnets. He has being printing with his own proprietary linoleum cut, soft point and monotype technique for the last several years. Eddie's work... Read more -
Notes from an Inside Space
Karine Swenson 14 Jul - 28 Aug 2022 This collection of paintings is a window into my inner world. We all have a world inside us that is known to us only, when we pause to reflect and spend time alone. I retreat inside my own world particularly when the outside world seems chaotic. There, I can find harmony. There, I can find sanctuary. There, I can find myself. All of that I communicate through the act of painting.
Color has become the language of my inner sanctum. I place it into a structure that hints at the landscape and structures we live in. Rounded edges stem from round adobe corners. Vigas and latillas cross over each other the same way my brushstrokes cross over each other. However, I am not painting things one can see in the physical world. The language of abstraction is symbolic – a metaphor for ideas and feelings. Perhaps each painting is a song, a way for colors to live in harmony on the painting surface, and reflect the harmony within. Read more -
Dreamscapes
Javier Chalini 14 Jul - 28 Aug 2022 Creating images is an exploration of profound understanding of what I have lived or learned but hadn’t made fully conscious.
Through the creative process I build my visual narrative walking between past and present, gathering memories, dreams, collective concepts, and daily events. This helps me to pass beyond simplistic forms and concepts, find or create symbols, metaphors, and myths that can embody an action or relationship.
It is a visual game that is intolerant of contrived perfection or inhibitions. There are no restrictions with respect to techniques, mediums, or incorporated elements; the source and evolution of my imagery are instinctive. I bring figures and symbols ready to dance in a visual way to conceptualize the space/time, action/reaction, assemblage/ chaos, conflict/passion. In this process, I recognize universal quests, verities, and our individual as well social humanity.
I hope that when encountering my journey with these visualized processes, the observer will share in, but also depart from mine to experience their own reflections. Read more -
The Destiny of Time
Blaine Ellis 26 May - 10 Jul 2022 Blaine Ellis became fascinated with the image of swimmers emerging from San Francisco Bay. Looking through my camera viewfinder he discovered an arena of ambiguous beings. Forms emerging through the ebb and flow of time. The use of extremely slow shutter speeds allowed the figures to multiply and fold back upon themselves. The spatial relationships and tensions between these beings became paramount. Chance became a participant. Gestures change in mid exposure. Improvisation. Space is left for mystery, space for the viewer to fill. The swimmers are no longer individuals, but everyman.
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Through the PInhole, Vol 1
Cody S. Brothers 26 May - 10 Jul 2022 Through the Pinhole, Vol 1 is the first exhibit of local photographer Cody S. Brothers' decades long work with a pinhole camera.
Primarily focused with infrared film, he was initially intrigued by the idea of the long exposure times a pinhole camera could offer if modified to shoot infrared film. The lengthy exposure times he felt would allow him to capture imagery more associated with time and feel, while setting up his lens-based equipment for more precision documentation. Taken in by the “Dream State” feel and quality of the imagery, he was immediately thrilled by the results.
In 2012, Brothers set out on a project “Through the Pinhole 2012”, to capture at least one pinhole image every day for the entire year. In doing so he developed a thorough familiarity with the camera and the exposure times needed for just about every kind of environment, light, and situation. While in New York City for an exhibition, and having to fulfill his daily image requirements, he witnessed a completely different form of street photography could be achieved. Hence, the birth of another project “NYC Through the Pinhole”.
The images in this exhibit are comprised of Brothers' personal favorites from his multiple projects and photographic journeys throughout the last decade. Read more -
Oculus, Within Worlds
Stuart Rome 14 Apr - 22 May 2022 In my most recent work, abstraction uproots subjects in my pictures and releases them from their familiar associations. These images become a form of guided hallucination, suggestive of curious but recognizable patterns that I have encountered in nature. I use real places to draw out connections that are analogous to maps of interior emotional and intellectual states. My intention is to create a bridge between the recognizable world and thoughts or impressions of other possibilities and even impossibilities.
In previous work, I photographed in distant places such as Latin America and Indonesia and examined the relationship between people and their environment. I documented ceremonies that revealed the active dialog with nature achieved through trance and possession. This experience provided me with an alternate viewpoint. It allowed me to see the multiplicity of perspectives that might be possible. Through my travels I discovered ways of seeing the natural world as a communicating entity and learned to see the landscape as living pattern. As a photographer, I look for alternative world views to the version of materialist culture in which I live. I have used examples found in mythology to unlock hidden worlds, which hold clues to alternatives for our prevailing cultural standard.
The photographs I am currently working on were made with-inside living, giant redwoods and sequoia trees; some over three thousand years old and are a small remnant of their species. The views from deep inside their dark interior, lit only by brief sunlight reveals an array of strange and nearly recognizable imagery. To the tribal group that have been their care takers for millennia, these hollow core trees are considered sacred space; They can be secret passageways to an underworld, places in which to make contact with the powers and forces which will eventually make their way into the world of light.
The images are made from with-inside ancient, living redwoods and sequoias in the American west. These giant trees’ hollowed-out from millennia of lightning strikes and fires, form apertures to the sky and the canopy above. Though hollow, these trees remain very much alive and their charcoal dark interiors reveal strange shapes that suggest a passage from one recognizable world to one that is like a waking dream.
For me, every process in picture making is a vehicle for considering meaning. The choice of black and white materials simplifies chaotic imagery into a form where a new visual order appears.
Over the course of my decade of work on this project, Oculus: I have learned that amongst other amazing qualities, these trees: communicate through a vast network of fungus filaments to move water and nutrients to other trees in need that could be miles away; were and still are considered sacred, ancient ancestors by the Yurok tribes though the only work available to those tribes was cutting them down. This is a project that for me has profound aspects relating to long term loss of natural habitats for short term gain as well as an appreciation for what still remains.
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Ohio Boundary, Lake Erie
Lynn Whitney 14 Apr - 22 May 2022 Lynn Whitney, Associate Professor, emerita, School of Art and George Bullerjahn, Ph.D, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences started working together in the fall of 2021. While both had retired this year from Bowling Green State University, their separate efforts continue to raise awareness about the critical state in which Lake Erie again finds herself.
A few years ago, Dr. Bullerjahn invited Professor Whitney, along with several other colleagues and students, to participate in his research supported by the Center for Fresh Waters and Human Health. She knew there was trouble beneath the surface but had only a general knowledge; she did not know the underlying changes in the condition of the lake. Her pictures which she has been making since 2009, wanted and needed the framework of Dr. Bullerjahn’s scientific expertise.
The North American Great Lakes represent over 20% of the surface fresh water on Earth. Lake Erie, being the shallowest of the lakes, and having the highest population in its basin, is under continuous assault by the forces of human activity, invasive species and climate change. The waters, seemingly endless, are an abundant, yet fragile resource. Fisheries, water quality, and coastlines are now drastically different following the displacement of indigenous peoples by European settlers. By the 1970s, Lake Erie was unceremoniously declared dead, due to urban pollution that choked the lake with toxic algae and fuel spills that set the Cuyahoga River on fire. These events led to the establishment of the first Earth Day in 1970. Consequently, changes in wastewater treatment and the use of phosphate detergents yielded dramatic improvements in water quality and lake habitat. Yet in this century, the state of the lake has again declined. Lake Erie has an additional burden because its home is the Rust Belt- a political and media generated term degrading and generalizing the decline of the region and its population.
With her 8 x 10 camera, Lynn Whitney’s photographs reveal Lake Erie from varying distances and throughout the seasons. The pictures are made from or on the shoreline, the surface where reflections on cultural, environmental, and personal realities are exposed. As a collection, these photographs remind us of the past we share; of what we have done and continue to do to the Lake and to each other. Ohio Boundary: Lake Erie asks what the chances are for our collective future and offers hope in the effort of noticing.
With ongoing, unmitigated climate change, fresh water will become the world’s most crucial resource, and its scarcity will present a threat to global security. Read more -
X-Flora
Bryan Whitney 3 Mar - 10 Apr 2022 The images in this exhibition are radiographs. Whitney is one of the foremost practitioners of this technique for artistic purposes and he has created x-ray images for over 20 years, and exhibited them internationally. He has written about x-rays in art and his work has been featured in books and magazines including Martha Stewart, Garden Design, Fortune, Wired, Italian Vogue, and Harpers Bazaar.
There are no cameras or lenses involved in the process. The plants are placed directly in front of the film and x-rays are beamed through the object and onto the film, revealing the beautiful inner structure of the flora. Whitney uses high resolution, large format x-ray film which he develops in the darkroom. The resulting image is the same size as the subject, similar to a photogram, where an object is placed on a sheet of photo paper.
After the negative film is scanned, the digital image is carefully adjusted to capture the delicate details and tones of the plants. A great deal of work goes into separating the plant from the background, adjusting contrast, and in the case of the positive images, painting in color. The finished radiograph is then printed on high quality archival paper. The refined appearance of these images gives them the look of etchings or watercolors.
Their beauty derives from their delicate transparency and the spare aesthetic of their composition where the negative space around the plants is as important as the subject itself. Technology is used by scientists to analyze and understand nature but here it is used by an artist to skillfully reveal a structural elegance that is hidden to the human eye. The preservation of the natural world has become increasingly important as we realize the threat we pose to the ecosystems of our planet. These botanical x-rays encourage us to appreciate and connect with nature, which is important for our own survival. Read more -
Of Masters and Myth
Kenneth Susynski 3 Mar - 10 Apr 2022 Of Masters and Myths is a two-pronged homage to select classical paintings and Greek mythology. Inspired by the efforts of the Old Masters to interpret biblical and mythological events and participants, Kenneth Susynski seeks contemporary translations that derive from his first-impulse reactions to these works and stories. Central to these works are spotlights on the figure, on subtle and blunt expression, and tight compositions that fasten to a specific narrative, thus allowing the independence of the brush and vitality of color to light the path. At conclusion, each of these paintings has both a bond to historical context as well as to a new tale that is receptive to personal response.
He is primarily a self-taught artist, discouraged by his parents from pursuing any form of personal passion as a career (“You will wind up driving a milk truck just like your cousin, Richard!” was an oft-delivered anthem that showed little faith nor encouragement). Thus, as to be expected of creative people, forced methodology produced the opposite effect and the heart was inherently followed with lifelong loyalty.
“Creatives of all talents possess the gift of peeling back the unseen and unexpected for the greater benefit of all – our goal is to depict the pristine beauty we see daily because we feel the obligation to release these joys to others. That is our role in the human fabric.”
Included in this exhibition is a baseball helmet with a little story.In 2010, Ken found a baseball helmet on a neighborhood street with the letter “S” on the front. Upon returning to the studio, he randomly painted the first words that came to his mind, “fascist twist”, on the front using the “S” logo. Since that day, the helmet has sat underneath every painting he has created and thus the beneficiary of countless drippings and flying paint as part of his process.
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Transforming the Dessert
Christa Stephens 20 Jan - 28 Feb 2022 Transforming the Desert is Santa Fe artist Christa Stephens’ emotional journey through the hard edges of her formative years on the Llano Estacado, a vast tableland that encompasses part of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. She was born on the palisaded plain, which has often been described as “barren” and “desolate” due its lack of vegetation, and was profoundly influenced by the stark geometry of this southwestern desert from an early age. Residing in the area through her twenties, she grew to revere her time on the high prairie as metaphor for personal reflection and transformation.
Building on this experience, Stephens became keenly interested in the way human consciousness correlates to natural and cosmological cycles. Inspired by scientific analogies between galactic and neurological activity, and insights gained from mathematical models of mental and emotional processes, she began to infuse her desert-inspired geometric abstractions with symbolic depictions of the patterns that permeate our inner and outer worlds. She continues to cultivate these ideas through her ongoing series,
Skyscapes of the Llano Estacado: Abstractions from Beyond the Horizon Line.
In these paintings, Stephens visualizes the southwestern sky as a conceptual substrate on which she condenses ethereal qualities of vapor and particles into geometric fragments. Hard edges draw upon the stark beauty of the immense staked plain, while bold, saturated colors dramatize the emotional density of one's journey through the allegorical desert of the soul. Using precisely rendered contrasting elements, she pieces together models of physical and perceptual phenomena, creating a subtractive, yet theatrical “mirage in the desert” description of the human experience.
These works amplify the horizon line between a calcified landscape and the infinity that rises from it; symbolizing the human capacity to thrive in, and ultimately transcend, the desert environments we face from without and within. They invite the viewer to consider that our true identities lie far beyond social and cultural constructs. From this perspective, phenomena that once seemed mythical or theoretical lie within the landscape of heart and mind. Read more -
Rock, Paper, Scissors
William Greiner 20 Jan - 27 Feb 2022 Rock Paper Scissor is an exhibition including works, mostly all on paper, from three separate and unique projects spanning a period of four years: Is Paris Burning (2020), Unusual Politics (2017), and Aspirational Recycling (2021).
Is Paris Burning is comprised of a group of paper collages made from harvested paper found in Paris, close to the recently burned Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. The title is a reference to the 1965 book title by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre telling the story of the Liberation of Paris during the Second World War. The book examines the military and political actions surrounding the events of late August 1944 around Paris and how these events unfolded. The title is taken from the question reportedly asked by Adolf Hitler following his order to destroy the city rather than let it be re-captured by the Allies. The story was adapted into a feature film by the same name in 1966.
Unusual Politics (2017-2020) is inspired by the contrasting leaderships of American Presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump, and how they influenced the artist. Obama represented the ideals of what hope, hard work, and integrity could bring for himself and for the nation. His administration contributed to eight years of prosperity that created a euphoria lending to complacency. According to Greiner, he did not think too much about how well our democracy was functioning.
The artist admits that never in his wildest dreams (or nightmares), did he ever envision the United States would elect a President such as Donald J. Trump. According to Greiner, “[Trump] is a man who exhibits no shame, no curiosity, no compassion, no humility, no intelligence, and no moral compass. It is hard to reconcile such a man as our leader, our President. We have been pitied in a battle between and amongst ourselves; black vs. white, wall vs. no-wall, red vs. blue, liberal vs. conservative, Nationalist vs. globalist, pro-gun vs. anti-gun, Climate change deniers vs. environmentalist , pro-abortion vs. anti-abortion. Pick your topic, pick your battle, there are many to choose from.”
Each day Greiner viewed these assaults on democratic norms, facts, decency, kindness, and fairness, “There are those fighting literal battles. A lack of health insurance can be a death penalty. A dreamer can be deported for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A worshiper or student needs to not only concentrate on a task but also wonder, might I get shot. Some take to social media as an outlet to share and vent. Twitter and Facebook offer a venue for being heard. I have certainly participated in that exercise.”
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Navigating Uncertainty
Anne Kornfeld 2 Dec 2021 - 15 Jan 2022 NAVIGATING UNCERTAINTY: AN ARTIST’S PANDEMIC JOURNEY, IS A BODY OF WORK THAT STARTED IN INDIA AND CONTINUES TO GROW WITH NEW WORK IN THIS AGE OF ANXIETY. THE WORK WAS EXHIBITED AT AURELIA GALLERY IN SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO FROM DECEMBER 2, 2021-JANUARY 16, 2022.
Photographer, Anne Kornfeld Read more -
Tempo
Karine Swenson 2 Dec 2021 - 16 Jan 2022 The tick of a clock, the beat of your heart, the passing of days…Life has a rhythm, a continuous beat. The brushstrokes in these paintings are a mirror of that rhythm. Sometimes, it beats faster, or slower, but it is ever present. The vertical and horizontal strokes of the color-... Read more -
A Stone Odyssey
Kenneth Smith 28 Oct - 28 Nov 2021 Ken Smith, a descendent of Russian Jews, was a child prodigy of art from Bronx, New York. He is a painter and cartoonist, a husband, father and grandfather, a Vietnam Veteran, a medical illustrator, a retired naval Commander, a general surgeon and a reconstructive plastic surgeon.
And now, over the last 37 years, he returned to his roots as an artist … as a sculptor of stone.
“For me, carving stone, making a stone sculpture is a transient romance. The process is full of expectations, followed by uncovering unknown mysteries, and at the end of the courtship, finding reality.
The reality may be wonderful or tragic, but always a reward for the effort that was undertaken. “On a trip to Santa Fe in 1985, “I fell in love with the clarity of the light and the architectural style caught my attention”. In 2012 Ken made his home in Santa Fe.
“There is nothing I enjoy more than stone sculpting under the unique lighting of the blue northern New Mexico skies”.
A Stone Odyssey is a series of deep emotional journeys captured in stone to be explored, treasured and remembered. Read more -
Being and There
Joseph Lawton 23 Sep - 24 Oct 2021 Joe’s pictures address something more personal than their foreign settings. His images of distant locations blend easily with pictures from the streets of New York, or his beloved New York State Fair. The heart of the work is that no matter how far afield Joe travels, he always brings back little pieces of himself. The pictures reveal much more about Joe and his travels than the stamps in his passport, or the stories he may tell later over drinks.”
- Carl Gunhouse in the afterword of Lawton’s book Plain Sight. Read more -
All Under Heaven
Lois Conner 2 Jul - 19 Sep 2021 he All Under Heaven exhibition is a retrospective of the work Lois Conner has created on the Navajo Reservation these past two decades. These important bodies of work began with the stories told by her maternal grandmother, Ruth, who was Cree. Beyond the stories, Ruth shared photographic stereo cards that could be seen through a viewer that made them three-dimensional. This visual storytelling wove tales about the wildness of the landscape, the vast skies, and the freedom to wonder which inspired Conner to explore the American West.
Conner has been traveling the world with her panoramic camera for the past 30 years, yet she has continuously returned to the American West as a place of personal significance and inspiration. Her interest is landscape as culture. Journeys began in 1989 and entailed long drives cross-country in her pick-up truck and sleeping in campsites. This allowed her to wake up imbued in the scenery that would become the photographs. By 1990, she started the first of her projects about the landscape and dwellings of the Navajo Reservation. The portraits that began in 1992, were inspired in part by the work she was making in the Tibet. The color double-exposures render visible the unseen monuments embedded in the land, the Navajo, and their myths and histories.
Photographing with a large-format panoramic camera is very deliberate on her part. Conner switched from the more classical 8x10 format to the 7x17 to include more and expand the narrative cinematically. For the Navajo portraits, the panorama was a way of connecting them visually to the landscape. What she is trying to reveal through photography in a deliberate, yet subtle way, is a sense of time passing, describing her relationship to both the visible and the imagined, to fact and fiction.
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No Illusions
Eddie Lee 27 May - 27 Jun 2021 Aurelia Gallery’s opening exhibit will feature a number of series in Mr. Lee’s portfolio, showcasing the artist’s exploration of human emotions and attempts to capture human connections, while venturing into greater social conditions with such work as his “Resistance Series,” featuring Mono Prints depicting several colorful variations of the Dakota Indian, The Black Man, The Muslim Woman, The Asian Man, and The Pussy Hat. Other works such as the “Limbo Series,” incorporate musical motives into his prints expressing rhythm, scale, phases, and tones through proportion and color.
Mr. Lee has been printing with linoleum cut, soft point, monotype technique for the last 30 years. Most recently he has integrated sheet magnets into his printing process.
Mr. Lee’s work has been exhibited previously in several galleries, including the Arc Gallery, Marine Society of Artists, Pacific Art League, Telegraph Hill Gallery, and the Graphic Arts Workshop gallery. His works are in the Kala institute Consignment Collection. Mr. Lee studied art and design at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Massachusetts College of Art for his BFA, and he attended the Yale University School of Art for his MFA. He is the founder and creative director of Square Two Design, a graphic design firm in San Francisco.
“I have spent the better part of four decades creating and curating art, and I have known and worked with so many amazing creative professionals. As we come out of one of the most difficult years this planet has experienced, I am excited and hopeful to share with the Santa Fe art community the wonderful works of Mr. Eddie Lee, and I am very happy to have Eddie by my side to open Aurelia Gallery,” says gallery owner Marius Mureșanu. “My goal is to offer patrons and artists alike the creative experience of a true art salon.” Read more
![NOSTALGIA (Natsukashii [nat-soo-kash-ee] – People use this word when remembering with fondness and feelings of warmth ev Works by Photographer David Joseph](https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/ws-artlogicwebsite1377/usr/images/exhibitions/main_image_override/44/cowboy-bar.jpg)
