August 23 – September 12, 2017 | Nina Tichava and Jamie Brunson: NEW New Mexico Abstraction
Nina Tichava was born in Vallecitos, NM, and was raised between rural Northern New Mexico and the Bay Area, California. Jamie Brunson, on the other hand, was born in Coronado, CA, and built her career in the Bay Area, only recently moving to Northern New Mexico. However, both artists are interested in time and place, and the influence of these concepts in their work is subtle yet undeniable.
Jamie Brunson‘s work has historically focused on the sensory experiences that occur in meditation practice. Since moving to New Mexico three years ago, elements of the environment, landscape, and architecture have increasingly influenced her compositions, expressed formally as saturated color, rhythmic intervals, geometric divisions, and tactile surface treatment. The final product evokes internal and external landscapes and shifting atmospheres. The process becomes the practice of staying grounded in the present through the immediacy of sensation.
Tichava works primarily from a procedural stance. Her art is about relationship, and her focus is on the interplay of elements and materials. Her process is best described as weaving, as she combines painting and printmaking techniques, drawing and collage, in a fashion both liberated and constrained. Tichava’s mother was a New Mexican weaver in the more traditional sense, and Nina’s paintings explore how to weave oneself into a tight knit, traditional community as a relative outsider. She weaves New Mexico’s historic aesthetic with contemporary concepts. Recently, the sudden and urgent sacredness of our natural environment has become Nina’s focus. Her Borrowed Landscapes series aims to find a new perspective and reconnection to the land and the people who call it home.
Opening Reception Friday, August 25, 2017 from 5 to 7pm
[n.b. that this event takes place in Santa Fe]
June 21 – July 10, 2016 | Fausto Fernandez, Jamie Brunson and Robert Townsend: ROY G BIV
Before there was a written language, color was the universal language of mankind. Prehistoric humans used color to describe every aspect of their lives. Red= blood; orange= fire; yellow=sun; green=natural vegetation/food source; blue=air; indigo=water; violet=the color of sunset/sunrise transition. Historians believe prehistoric people would travel up to 25 miles to mine iron, for pigments to make the red and ochre paints for their cave paintings.
Ancient Egyptians valued color symbolism in their tombs and temples so deeply that their desire for additional color options fueled their efforts in mining and trade. We know for certain that the Greek and Roman sculptures we think of as monochromatic white, were originally polychromatic! They had red lips, colored eyes, brilliantly hued garments–all painted with painstakingly created paints from pure pigment. The more rare the pigment, the more exalted the subject.
Opening Reception Friday, June 24, 2016 from 5 to 7pm
[n.b. that this event takes place in Santa Fe]
April 14 – 17, 2016 | Turner Carroll at the Dallas Art Fair
Located at the Fashion Industry Gallery, adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the revitalized downtown arts district. Featuring new works by gallery artists Fausto Fernandez, Hung Liu, Squeak Carnwath, Drew Tal, Jamie Brunson, Rusty Scruby, Edward Lentsch, Wanxin Zhang, Suzanne Sbarge, Karen Yank, Scott Greene, Holly Roberts, and more! Fair hours are Friday and Saturday, April 15 and 16 respectively, from 11am to 7pm, and Sunday, April 17 from 12pm to 6pm, with an opening preview gala Thursday, April 14.
A link to the Dallas Art Fair is here.