BIG PAPER
"Big Paper features six artists from Santa Fe and around the country whose talents explore the versatility of the medium: Alison Keogh, Shelby Shadwell, Wesley Berg, Larry Bob Phillips, Peter Ligon, and Lisa Wederquist...The drawings range from simple to complex, and there are some surprises..."
Michael Abatemarco, Santa New Mexican Pasatiempo, May 27, 2001, page46-48
"Big Paper is a simple and satisfying conceit that has the ability to convey wonder."
- Rani Molla, Santa Fe Reporter, May 18, 2011
"I am a real sucker for charcoal drawings when they are good, and when they are very good, something gets ignited in my often intellectually-mediated experience of art that I didn't know had grown cold. The hand being right there in the application of the material to paper, what the great Delacroix called "la touche" (the stroke), makes for a filling up of space that had been blank, is the simplest way to put it. Simple is good. And so is Big Paper at 333 Montezuma Annex gallery in Santa Fe - in which drawing in broad terms is the medium, and the material from sumi ink to charcoal to acrylic on linen, plants into the visual mind stuffs concrete and material enough to be really satiating."
Ellen Berkovitch, Adobe Airstream, May 26, 2011, http://adobeairstream.com/art/a-bear-where-over-there/
Capriccio: 1985 - 2010
"This compelling exhibition includes a number of collages and small drawings, with the artist's sense of color and texture rarely skipping a beat...Thanks to the breadth and variety of work on display here, 'Capriccio' is a special opportunity to see an unabashedly adventurous local artist who has molded a distinct narrative for herself."
- Iris McLister, THE Magazine, May, 2011
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"Kay Harvey's current exhibition of 66 paintings and works-on-paper spanning more than two decades is a revelation. For devotees of painting, this show is an ideal encounter, for it has been subtly selected and installed to emphasize the fullness and freshness of Harvey's skillful and exuberant explorations."
- Malin Wilson-Powell, Albuquerque Journal North, April 15, 2011
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Luminous: work of Mayumi Nishida
"In Nishida's work, light also binds the subject-in this case, the viewer herself-to the viewer. The viewer is the subject, thus the works are incredibly personal, predicated on her image. Therefore Luminous is as multifaceted as the person who looks at it-and likely possesses more interest than just light and darkness. "
- Rani Molla, Santa Fe Reporter, March 2, 2011, www.sfreporter.com
Mayumi Nishida's current practice extends the lineage of Op Art to reexamine the interfaces between art and the mechanics of perception. In addition to a haunting installation, her current exhibition presents nine medium-format reliefs constructed of a thin sheet constituting hundreds of glass and/or acrylic spheres suspended between viewers' and a mirrored backdrop. Closely allied with the recent work of Heather Carson and Iván Navarro, and owing in part to their highly regulated surfaces and disciplined economy of means, her works amplify minute shifts in ambient light relative to the position of the spectator. Though their aesthetic cohesion makes it difficult to name any individual work a standout, the intense reactivity of "Refrain" is exceptionally rewarding to the patient viewer. A step in any given direction can transform a series of illusory chevrons into a plane of shimmering grey circles.
Despite the exceedingly rewarding complexities of Nishida's reliefs, her viewer-activated installation "Introduction to Water" commands the center of attention. Motivated by the artist's recent experience of moving off the grid, the work is said to serve as a visual transcription of the Japanese phrase megumi no ame, meaning "a welcome rain." Merging a ritualistic event with cutting-edge green technology, the work invites viewers to ladle rainwater collected from the artist's rural studio in to a ceramic vessel seemingly adrift in a steel cistern. As the vessel fills, overhanging LEDs powered by a discrete solar charged battery shimmer at an accelerating pace. At once fully immersive and deceptively simple, the work shares a certain allegiance with Yayoi Kusama's mesmerizing recent installation "Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity," in which an infinity room is suffused with minute lights reflected towards infinity above a pool of stygian water. Yet, Nishida's embrace of interactivity both extends and realizes such installations' meanings to bridge the divide between the metaphysical and the political. The work thus produces a potent meditation on our shared complicity in diverse networks of the consumption, creation, and redistribution of natural and manufactured resources.
- Alex Ross, Visual Arts Source, March 25, 2011
"Continuing her explorations of elusive phenomena and illumination, Mayumi Nishida's solo show at 222 Shelby Street Gallery welcomed the Santa Fe spring with a brilliant sprinkling of luminous rain and some surprisingly interactive glass-marble devices...The clear glass marbles of various sizes in white and silver frames recall the early work of Piero Manzoni in his connection with Düsseldorf ZERO, while the pieces composed in translucent colors seemrichly baroque, almost decadent in comparison, adding nuances of painting, mosaic and stained glass."
- Jon Carver, Art Ltd, May/June 2011
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Painting Groucho's Duck by David Kearns
"Painting Groucho's Duck has all its ducks in a row...David Kearns thinks outside the box but within the same plane...The exhibition can be appreciated at two distinct levels. First: for its ebullient blur of pastels, which manage to demand attention
without raising their voices...Second: for the abundance of discovery."
- Rani Molla, Santa Fe Reporter, December 22, 2010, www.sfreporter.com
"Kearns' small painting titled "Wild and Crazy Guy" of a block-head with
three-eyes is an amalgamation of Guston's one-eyed artist blockhead as
well as Japanese anime of aliens, Steve Martin's comedic character, and
- for New Mexicans - reminiscent of a pastel Kachina head wearing plaid.
Yikes! It works, but how"?
- Malin Wilson-Powell, Journal North, December 24, 2010, www.journalnorth.com
"If you like to discover in paintings some questions you hadn't thought to pose, then Painting Groucho's Duck - is not a bad place to start...These works on board or panel or paper are all realized in acrylic paint, with prolific variations in texture, gloss, and gesture that suggest a genuine, ongoing exploration. Kearns engages with the dynamics of surface and resistance, transparency and opacity, which is what makes looking at his paintings a visceral experience."
- Marina LaPalma, THE Magazine, February/March 2011, page 45
Gees Bend
"The topic of the dialogue circled around the quilts made by the artists of Gee's Bend, the now-famous collective of women in Alabama who have lived a literal rags-to-riches story. Their quilts have traveled all over the country, including a 2008 exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art. The quilts are masterpieces and ought to be looked at while the opportunity is there...If you haven't seen the quilts, you must. And if you haven't met Tavelli, I recommend that, too. He is eager without seeming pretentious or like he's trying to impress. It's as though any given visitor has arrived while he's in mid-thought."
- John Photos, Santa Fe Reporter, January 13, 2010, http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-5142-blanket-statements.html
True West
"The two-person exhibition, True West, currently on view at 222 Shelby Street Gallery, is a surprisingly simple and succinct depiction of the contemporary Western landscape, specifically as seen from the freeway. Shadwell and Jones, both transplant teachers in Wyoming, seem equally struck by the isolation of the surroundings in their new home. Opposing and complementing each other, the artists use the semitruck as their subject in ways that are humorous as well as depressing...True West creates a coherent snapshot of the aesthetics and social implications of our long-haul shipping system and its infrastructure. The result is both beautiful and thought-provoking."
- John Photos, Santa Fe Reporter, September 23, 2009, http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-4888-hit-the-road.html
The Shape of Space
clytie alexander, edith baumann, norbert prangenberg
june 11 - july 3, 2010
Reviewed by Kate McGraw for the Albuquerque Journal, June 11, 2010.
Milestone
Clytie Alexander, Edith Baumann, Norbert Prangenberg
February 5- March 15, 2010
Milestone was reviewed by Harmony Hammond for the Albuquerque Journal, February 5, 2010, page S8.
The Artists of Gee's Bend
Louisiana Bendolph, Mary Lee Bendolph, Loretta Bennett, Lucy Mingo, Essie Bendolph Pettway, Lola Pettway, Quinne Pettway
July 9 - August 10, 2009
"Despite their long lineage and deep tradition, these quilts are anything but old-fashioned; they transcend the usual distinctions between folk art and fine art. The Artists of Gee's Bend collects the work of Mary Lee Bendolph and several other members of the quilting collective to give a sense of the talent and intense creativity that goes into each piece."
- Alex Roberts, Santa Fe Reporter, July 8-14, 2009, page 23.
Landscape and Memory:
Pat Kikut, Debbie Long, Sarah Spengler, John Wenger
June 4 - July 6, 2009
"...the violent possession of Nature has now been submerged and lost beneath the narcissism of our internal contradictions, which generally manifest themselves in selfishness and complicity. In resistance to these peculiarily mammalian aberrations, the totemic qualities of Long's wax and glass objects are expressed in a language that is both confrontational and fetishistic. In her powerfully abbreviated tree trunks, the logic inherent in totemism itself is utterly decapitated, identifying industrial carnage in its most sexual and cannibalistic terms. In light of clear-cutting and mountaintop coal removal, it's hard not to see an association."
- Anthony Hassett, THE Magazine, July 2009, page 53.
Landscape and Memory was reviewed by Douglas Fairfield in the Pasatiempo, Santa Fe New Mexican, June 12-18, 2009, page 54.
the shape of space: clytie alexander, edith baumann, norbert prangenberg
mary lee bendolph & the gee's bend co-operative
true west: david jones & shelby shadwell
passing root, heart, remains: the photography of deborah samuel
the artists of gee's bend: louisiana bendolph, mary lee bendolph, loretta bennett, lucy mingo, essie bendolph pettway, lola pettway, quinne pettway
landscape and memory: pat kikut, debbie long, sarah spengler, john wenger
drawings & cutouts: larry bob phillips, karina hean, rose simpson
press release: a collection of artists from three print shops