Backstory: “Prey to the Pursuit” by Reyes Padilla
Reyes Padilla is a painter of sound. In short, because of his synesthesia, he can experience sounds visually. He listens to music and paints the music he sees. The paintings he creates are possible because of this remarkable and unique ability. His new exhibit Synful Norteño at the Lapis Room in Old Town is an evolution and maturing of this approach to painting developed through personal work. The results are astounding, if you have the sense to see them.
Thoughts on the Untitled Work by Daisy Quezada Ureña
For last in our four-part series covering the Albuquerque exhibition of Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’, we highlight the untitled work by Daisy Quezada Ureña on display at Exhibit/208. As with the other pieces we have reviewed, “Alien Species” by Eric J. Garcia at El Chante: Casa De Cultura; “Santa Librada” by Brandon Maldonado at the South Broadway Cultural Center and Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”at Tortuga Gallery, we are sticking with the “Here” portion of artists in this show with New Mexican artist Daisy Quezada Ureña. I will keep my thoughts on this piece brief.
Thoughts on “Road Tripping: Midwest” by Dana Patterson Roth
Riding in cars for long distances when you’re a kid is brutally dull. Those of us old enough to have suffered through this before the rise of cell phones and other such electronic devices remember a time when your options were minimal. Sit there. Do nothing. Look out the window. I guess you could read, if you knew how and it didn’t make you car sick.
Thoughts on “Alien Species” by Eric J. Garcia
For the third part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we stay with a New Mexico artist, Eric j. Garcia, and spend some time with a work that is very much a product of New Mexico, “Alien Species,” currently on exhibit at El Chante: Casa De Cultura.
Much has been written about Garcia lately in local publications and deservingly so. I see no need to rehash what they have said, but clearly his body of work is both thoughtful and accessible, a rare combination. In “Alien Species” we again see these qualities. The point is made plain; cows are the aliens here in the Southwest.
Thoughts on Eyeshine by Adrian Pijoan
Adrian Pijoan is not an apologist ufologist. He’s been at this kind of stuff for a while as host of the YouTube series Alien Hour, in character as paranormal researcher Dr. Howard. In his exhibit at the Harwood Art Center, Pijoan uses the paranormal palette – Aliens, Bigfoot, Mothman – to tell personal stories much like a retablo painter renders the saints and for many of the same reasons. They all form the characters in stories we tell each other here in New Mexico. The truth is, after all, out here.
Thoughts on “Santa Librada” by Brandon Maldonado
For the second part of our four-part series on the exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’ we again stay with an Albuquerque artist Brandon Maldonado and take a look at his “Santa Librada” at the South Broadway Cultural Center.
Much has been said about this venerated, bearded woman here in New Mexico making this piece an excellent choice for inclusion in this exhibit. I don’t want to dive too far into Santa Librada’s story here because, like the stories of all saints, it is filled with so many diverging origins and ever-evolving interpretations (as well as the fact she is not an actual saint according to the Catholic Church) that this particular work could be easily swamped.
Thoughts on Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”
I’ve always thought that Pema Chodron’s suggestion to start where you are could be applied to just about anything, if for no other reason than it requires no travel time. When it comes to the ambitious 60-artist, four-venue exhibit Son de Alla’ y Son de Aca’, starting with a work from here also makes sense. Artists from Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas have efforts to show here in Albuquerque at Exhibit/208, the South Broadway Cultural Center, El Chante and where we begin our four-part look at this exhibit at Tortuga Gallery, with Albuquerque-native Elena Baca’s “Whirl(wind)”.
Thoughts on Legacies by Sam Elkind
Contemporary landscape photography is often plagued by the type of photographer that heads out into the American West to find the exact spot where Ansel Adams or some other such person made a famous photograph. They will seek out the exact tripod holes in the ground (sometimes even finding them there in the dirt left by some previous photo-geocacher with a similar goal) in order to recreate the same photo. Don’t think for a moment that it is like Hunter S. Thompson retyping The Great Gatsby to get the feel of the words. It is lamer.
Thoughts on the Photography of Lee Marmon
The new retrospective exhibit of photographer Lee Marmon’s work, Between Two Worlds, at the Albuquerque Museum is a tribute to a photographer who was pivotal in the shifting of perceptions of Native Americans that began after WWII and continues to this day. While the impact Marmon had on how Native Americans were seen in the mid-20th century is undeniable, the remarkable thing about Marmon’s photography itself may be how unremarkable the photographs actually are. I say that not to run the man down, but to highlight what truly makes Marmon a remarkable photographer.
Thoughts on the Breaking Bad Sculpture
It was a lovefest at the Albuquerque Convention Center on Friday for the unveiling of the Walter White and Jesse Pinkman statue and why not? Breaking Bad was transformative for Albuquerque. It changed the way we saw ourselves and the world saw us. It made the film industry in this town. People bought houses with the money they made working on the show. Locals flocked to be background actors so they could point themselves out to their friends on the TV. While there are critics of the statue, in a city where a guy got shot two years ago over a dispute about the kind of statues we should have here, things could be more controversial.
"A Declaration of Sanity" by Jesse Littlebird
Jesse Littlebird is a painter of big paintings. Prolific, contemplative and an unabashed fan of Basquiat, you can see the influence of the New York painter on his work, but Littlebird is clearly from here. His paintings draw from a pallet of symbols recognizable as of this place as do many of his ideas. While describing where he got the idea for the title piece of his current show at the Lapis Room (and the subject of this Backstory), "A Declaration of Sanity," he said he was on the bus when a guy dumped his notebook on the floor and it looked like that. A classic scene that could have been anywhere, but it was in Albuquerque.
Gandert on Malinche y los Matachines
Sunday afternoon, Albuquerque photographer Miguel Gandert spoke to a crowded house at the Albuquerque Museum about his photographs of Matachine dancers included within the current exhibit Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche. Gandert has spent decades photographing and dissecting the blend of indigenous and Hispanic influences that create Matachines. Filled with symbolism and cultural markers of the shared histories of the Mexican and New Mexican communities that perform the dance, Gardert’s work is an essential component of this exhibit and offers a fuller understanding of a truly New Mexican interpretation of the legacy of La Malinche.
“Mizz Biloba” by Jennifer DeSantis
Jennifer DeSantis is a multi-media artist. To hear her describe her work, it is clear that the multiple media that make that a fitting description evolved organically. Her work begins as a two-dimensional collage but then comes the add-ons. First, the augmented reality, then the wearables. The Albuquerque Courier’s editor Clarke Conde spoke with DeSantis at her exhibit at Nob Hill’s Mariposa Gallery about her work for this edition of Backstory. The following is an edited version of the story of “Mizz Biloba.”
Thoughts on Remnants
Working with found objects, that is objects found in the natural world, or more specifically, dead objects, is a tradition that finds virtue in its ability to directly reconsider the object’s original purpose. The latest exhibit at Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitor Center brings together two veterans of the craft, Carolyn Berry and Margy O’Brien, whose paring was described as two people who “thought it was the most natural thing in the world to examine roadkill and pluck butterflies from car grills in parking lots.”
Christie Green’s “Moonlight Elk”
For this exhibit, the artist Christie Green shot an elk, quartered and hauled her out of the woods, butchered the meat, boiled the bones, cast the heart, fashioned part of the animal’s sternum into a garment, suspended the articulated skeleton from the ceiling and welcomed visitors to the opening last night at North Fourth Street Art Center. I have been to plenty of openings in my life, but at only one other (my own) did they serve the animal that was the principal focus of the artwork on display to the viewers. I tried some. It was quite good.
Thoughts on Surface 2022
The Harwood Art Center’s Surface show this year again focuses on what has been dubbed “emerging” artists in New Mexico. I’ve always found the word “emerging” an awkward description of a time in someone’s career, but the name has found its footing and does the job of conveying the circumstance so I guess we are stuck with it until something else comes along. Let not the name, nor my thoughts on it, cast aspersions on the artists participating in this year’s Surface: Emerging Artists of New Mexico exhibit.
Thomas Bowers’ Childlike Behavior
Ah, to be young and talented. After being awarded last year’s Harwood Art Center Solo Exhibition Award at the Surface show, Thomas Bowers produced a stellar collection of new work, primarily at Harwood’s Sixth Street Studio for the new exhibit Childlike Behavior. Bowers creates work that is unrestrained and appropriately dubbed “childlike.” With paintings physically larger in scale than last year, Bower’s exhibit makes full use of the Front Gallery by hanging the works and then taking crayon to wall to emphasize the, um, childlike behavior. Augmented by smaller, childish objects and written pieces, the result is an integrated installation that is greater than the sum of its parts.
The State of the City
The State of the City was a well-choreographed affair that offered an opportunity to see and hear a bit of the mayor’s vision for the future. Stay the course seemed to be the message, with a bit of blame placed on COVID for stuff that didn’t work out as expected. Maybe that is the best we can do right now. It can’t be an easy job being the mayor, a job made even more difficult with the pandemic dominating so much of it. I’m not going to get into that here. I just want to talk about the art.
Orlando Leyba’s “King Solomon's Double-wide”
King Solomon – The king of the mines. The king of the baby math. The king of over 3,000 proverbs. The king of so many ancient stories, and with Orlando Leyba’s “King Solomon's Double-wide” on exhibit at the South Broadway Cultural Center, a contemporary one. What I truly enjoy about this piece is that it allows me to entertain myself by thinking of wise old King Solomon, the temple built, kicking back in a double-wide somewhere maybe outside Chimayo, writing Ecclesiastes. I do wonder how the 700 wives would fit in there.
Ben Harrison’s “Firebird”
Several years ago, when I was living in Old Town about 500 yards from Ghostwolf Gallery that hosts the work “Firebird” by Ben Harrison, I witnessed a convention of Pontiac Firebirds in the parking lot across the street. The Detroit heyday beer tent racers filled the lot to the tune of close to 100 on a bright, sunny Albuquerque summer day. Out of the clear blue sky, golf ball-sized hail fell in buckets, slamming against the hoods and T-tops of the defenseless birds. Firebird decals and custom paint jobs were quickly marred and dented. Guys stood helpless under colonnades watching countless Saturday afternoon’s restoration work pummeled by falling ice. It was a sad sight when the hail cleared after not more than five minutes and the car owners rushed out to inspect the damage. Tears were shed. James Garner rolled in his grave.