SURFACE - Emerging Artists of NM - Exhibition Catalog 2023

SUrFaCE

emerging artists of new mexico

JUNE 14 - AUGUST 31, 2023

SUrFaCE

emerging artists of new mexico

Harwood Art Center

June 14 - August 31, 2023

Curated by Helen Atkins, Jordyn Bernicke and Julia Mandeville

COVER: Cortney Yellowhorse-Metzger, Family Portraits, Natural Clay Harvested in Osage County on Historical Family Land, 2023; Pages 5-6: SURFACE: Emerging Artists of NM installation, Images by Sallie Scheufler

Harwood Art Center is pleased to present SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico and Theh-wahho^ Pah-hun^-leh Kah-xah Be (Keep Respect for Your People First) by Cortney Yellowhorse-Metzger.

SURFACE is an annual juried exhibition, endowed awards and professional development program presented by Harwood Art Center, to support the creative and professional growth of emerging artists and to expand their visibility and viability in our community. We have received hundreds of noteworthy submissions over ten application cycles to-date; as of this year, the program has served 127 exceptionally talented, committed artists, including the 10 we accepted for 2023.

This year’s SURFACE exhibition in Harwood’s Hall Gallery features Carrie Botto, Petra Brown, Monika Guerra, Allison Jones Hunt, Leviathan O’Neil, Leigh Oviatt, Louie Perea, Rocío Rodriguez, Row Särkelä and Zuyva Sevilla.

Each year one artist receives the Harwood Art Center Solo Exhibition Award, presented for artistic excellence, originality of vision and dedication to practice. The selected artist works for a year with support from Harwood staff to make a new body of work to exhibit the following year during our SURFACE Emerging Artists program at Harwood. In SURFACE 2022, Cortney Yellowhorse-Metzger received the Solo Exhibition Award and this year, is showcasing her new work in the Front gallery.

SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico is dedicated to cultivating the creative and professional growth of artistic talents and to expanding their visibility and viability in our community. Each year Harwood Art Center invites emerging artists from around New Mexico to submit works for consideration in SURFACE. SURFACE artists are eligible for four named awards and a solo gallery exhibition award, and all receive a special honorarium for their participation.

SURFACE is open to individuals working in any media and from diverse creative fields, including drawing, painting, printmaking, jewelry making, fashion, design, architecture, digital media, etc. We encourage submission of new and / or experimental works. Harwood takes a broad approach to “emerging artist,” and applicants are asked to self-identify with this description. Applicants must be currently living, working and/or studying in New Mexico.

SURFACE enjoys a seven-week exhibition in Harwood Art Center’s Hall Gallery throughout June and July.

SURFACE artists also participate in a private day-long professional development workshop Workshop sessions are led by professional artists, gallerists, public relations / communications specialists and local media, and focus on refining artist statements / written materials, developing a web and communications presence, audience and collector cultivation, as well as an exhibition walkthrough with feedback on each artists’ work.

Harwood has a generous community of supporters, funders and partners. With support from the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, New Mexico Arts & National Endowment for the Arts, and the McCune Charitable Foundation, we are able to present the SURFACE Emerging Artists of NM Award & Microgrant of $250 to each of this year’s artists.

Each year, a group of talent pulled from a wealth of creativity are woven together to exemplify the trajectory of contemporary arts in New Mexico. With their experimental works that blend media, subject and style, the 2023 SURFACE: Emerging Artists cohort shows us that our creative community is ever evolving.

With her abstract paintings, Allison Jones Hunt explores intuition and healing. Her works are in conversation with her body and with disability. Their brightness, movement and beauty are a reflection of her belief that “art will always be able to meet us where we are.” With their own body, Louie Perea creates intimate portraiture rooted in identity, nuance, and decolonization. They offer themselves, with softness and strength, in an act of reclamation. Centering portraiture as a means of self-actualization.

Softness and safety envelop the viewer in Petra Brown’s socially engaged weavings. Her colorful tapestry When Our Identities Manifest, is more than its monolithic presence. It is a relic of connection between cultures and generations. Between loved ones. Between past and present. Rocío Rodriguez’s sculptures and photographs live in this liminal space between. Her photographs balance whispers of light with deep shadow, and her sculptures seamlessly fuse the strength of concrete and steel with the beauty of brittle branches.

Leviathan O’Neil offers whimsy, intimacy, and truth in his semi-autobiographical illustrations. With mastery of his mediums, he creates lush and surreal renderings that are lovingly detailed with imagery from the natural world, creating deep personal symbology. Monika Guerra’s self portraits in oil create ”different planes of existence.” With their larger than life scale and deeply intentional rendering, her paintings command strength. They occupy this world, while simultaneously pulling the viewer into another.

With small vessels, Carrie Botto creates cocoons of wonder. Her sculptural weavings are delicate yet strong, especially evident in the pieces that grow like tenderlas of vine around rock. A lifesize cocoon by Row Särkelä hangs from the ceiling nearby, offering a literal space for visitors to tuck away and hide. Row’s practice blends performance and textile arts, exploring transformation and adornment. Leigh Oviatt weaves works that are alive with movement, texture and color. Her work is warm in both the figurative and literal sense. The rhythmic pattern of her weavings and their plush presence radiate with a frequency that evokes meditation and joy.

Zuyva Sevilla considers reality and perception, creating pieces that beautifully organize chaos. He collects light, heat and movement in multimedia works that are alive, even though they are made of industrial material. Zuyva encapsulates the elusivity that animates our physical world, creating works that seemingly breathe once they are plugged in.

In Cortney YellowHorse-Metzger’s solo exhibition, Theh-wah-ho^ Pah-hun^-leh Kah-xah Be (Keep Respect for Your People First), we see similar themes of identity, physicality, and place. She combines ceramic and video performance to create an exhibition that offers vulnerability and introspection with power and confidence. Clay harvested from her home lands becomes a conduit to connect with her heritage and her people. The centerpiece, and anchor of the exhibition, a ceiling to floor installation of beautiful cascading bits of fired clay, perfectly showcases the power of Cortney’s practice. Her work, while incredibly personal, is curated with clarity and precise intention.

Each year, artists apply to SURFACE with no thematic reference. From many talented artists we bring together a constellation of stars that shine individually, and connect together to tell a unique story. This year’s story is one of ingenuity, personhood, and strength.

SURFACE: EMERGING ARTISTS OF NM

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP

We have endless gratitude for our insightful & generous panelists who shared their experiences & knowledge with our 2023 SURFACE cohort. The dialogues offered a supportive space of connection, centering inspiration, and nurturance to grow.

Featured Panelists & Session Descriptions:

Shaping Artistic Identities, Narratives & Foundations

Maggie Grimason, Arts Journalist, Editor & Creative Writer

Reyes Padilla, Painter, Muralist & Public Artist

Cultivating Artistic Opportunities, Platforms & Pathways

Natalie Voelker, Artist, Painter & Muralist

Zahra Marwan, Artist, Illustrator, Author,

Nurturing Engagement, Media, Collectors & Communities

Apolo Gomez, Artist & SURFACE Alum

Lauren Tresp, Publisher & Editor - Southwest Contemporary

Exhibition “Walk Through”, Compliment & Insight Session with Closing Circle

Sherri Brueggemann, Division Manager - City of Albuquerque Public Art Urban Enhancement Trust Fund Program

Andrew Connors, Curator & Museum Director - Albuquerque Museum

Katya Crawford, Artist, Designer, Professor + Chair - UNM School of Architecture & Planning

CARRIE BOTTO

“Working with paper allows me to create in a way I never have tried before….. creating vessels that in my mind depict ocean creators, or weaving a forest with paper on rock brings me so much joy.. and as always baskets… they are my fall back when I need to relax…” – Carrie Botto

www.instagram.com/beanstreetstudio

CARRIE BOTTO GREW UP ALWAYS HAVING

BEING ABLE TO EXPRESS HERSELF IN A NUMBER

SOMETHING TO KEEP HER BUSY IN HAND.

NUMBER OF MEDIUMS KEEPS HER MIND CLEAR.

PETRA BROWN

Petra grew up along the Great Lakes. Fields, forests, and rivers filled her childhood and fed her imagination. She comes from a family of artists where creativity was seamlessly incorporated into daily life. A rural upbringing also instilled an insatiable hunger for what is beyond small-town America and encourages Petra to discover alternative realities. This has led her to pursue opportunities such as an internship with a fairtrade clothing company in India, a Work-Away to learn European weaving practices, apprenticing at a Japanese weaving studio in Manhattan, archiving textiles and cultivating indigo at a Cleveland fiber cooperative, and working as a rug repair technician in Albuquerque.

Petra’s multi-media practice is a coalescence of introspection and influences of craft traditions, with her primary medium being textiles. Petra is empowered by fiber arts, creating them is a reclamation of femininity and ancestral tradition on her own terms. Textiles allow her to be resourceful and self-sufficient, repurposing used and natural materials to create something utilitarian, allowing her to avoid reliance upon commercialism and fast fashion. As of late, Petra’s greatest inspirations have been the effervescent concepts of memory. Recently investigating her artistic linage has led to discovering textiles as memory keepers and story tellers. She is experimenting with ways to tell a story, letting texture, color, and imbued intention express emotion and recollection. Petra also draws from daily observations, from watching shadows dance across seats on a moving train, to universal emotions such as loss and repression, she lets lines and threads express what she cannot in words.

www.instagram.com/petraglyphss

AS OF LATE, PETRA’S GREATEST INSPIRATIONS THE EFFERVESCENT CONCEPTS OF MEMORY.

INSPIRATIONS HAVE BEEN MEMORY.

MONIKA GUERRA

Monika Guerra is a Mexican-American contemporary artist born in Southern California and raised in Southern New Mexico. Guerra’s studio practice explores and creates different planes of existence through painting, photography and print – where she constantly questions her position in this reality and her state of the human experience. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Certificate in Business & Entrepreneurship from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2022.

The works included in this exhibition concerns itself with reincarnation, spirituality and coexisting universes. Derived from a larger body of work titled, “Does Anyone Know if Any of This is Real?”, Guerra voices personal experiences and questions within these subject matters. The pieces incorporate Guerra’s double in ambiguous settings, where one opens a dialogue about spirituality, and the other about reincarnation. The works are also seen as windows into different realities from which the doubles look out from – looking back into the viewer’s eyes. This proposes that the figure notices us just as much as we notice them. “Does Anyone Know if Any of This is Real?” encourages viewers to open their minds, perceive the world around them with a little extra curiosity, and not be afraid to ask questions regarding this reality. We are the universe experiencing ourselves. We are all interconnected.

www.monikaguerra.com

VOICES PERSONAL EXPERIENCES

GUERRA

AND QUESTIONS WITHIN THE CONCERNS OF REINCARNATION, SPIRITUALITY AND CO-EXISTING UNIVERSES.

ALLISON JONES HUNT

Allison Jones Hunt is an abstract painter based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work uses bold color, intuitive form, and layers dancing between chaos and control to channel the entire emotional spectrum, offering viewers permission to feel it all. As a disabled woman, her creative practice uses the dynamic and embodied act of painting as somatic processing and healing for herself, the viewer, and the world at large. Her work and creative process serve as vibrant examples that art will always be able to meet us where we are (both physically and emotionally) if we are willing to explore new methods of creation, new visual concepts, and innovative ways of sharing our gifts.

Born with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and congenital hip dysplasia, Allison was frequently confined to a wheelchair or relegated to the sidelines of childhood activities. Frustrated by her physical restrictions, she found the hope of liberation in disabled artists using their creativity to transcend their limitations. In her early years, her creative work was predominantly figurative—photorealistic portraits, large-scale ink illustration, and elaborate woodcuts of desert flora and power lines. But as her disability progressed, she began to lose the ability to grip a carving chisel or sustain the small repetitive motion of finely detailed illustration without pain. In 2019, she pivoted to painting large-scale abstract works that allowed her grip to relax around larger brushes wither more open motion throughout her body. Her art continues to explore themes of physical inclusivity in the art world, and she is digging deeper into creative ways of adapting her creative process to a progressive disability.

www.allisonjoneshunt.com

ALLISON’S WORK AND CREATIVE PROCESS SERVE AS VIBRANT EXAMPLES THAT ART WILL ALWAYS BE ABLE TO MEET US WHERE WE ARE (BOTH PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY)

Born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Leviathan O’Neil’s body of work is informed by the New Mexican landscape and life in Albuquerque. They are trans-masculine and use he/him and they/them pronouns. The driving force behind his artistic practice is healing in many forms: identity, processing trauma, and grappling with spirituality. They want to break the cycle of generational trauma, using art as a tool. He was born with a cleft palate, originally turning to art to express what couldn’t be said aloud. Art remains a lifeline throughout struggles with mental health and healing. Leviathan has had a deep appreciation for plants, animals, and nature from a young age. They are always eager to learn more about herbalism, ethical harvesting methods, and all things environmental. This love of nature shines through in the use of plant symbolism within their artwork. Lately, he has been focused on resiliency through grieving.

Leviathan Elliott O’Neil’s works serve as a means of examining past and present, pleasant and unpleasant. Everything is fleeting, the good, the bad, and the in-between. In order to portray life in an authentic way, these works take inspiration from the mundane, the natural world, and personal emotions during the time they were created. The piece make your bed and lie in it, is inspired by works by fellow New Mexican artists. Elements of Eli Levin’s Lonely Bar and Jerry West’s Prairie Dreams lend to the exploration of childhood fears and preoccupations in this work. Leviathan Elliott O’Neil’s art is a baseline form of communication and emotional processing. Each piece examines a moment in time and what it feels like to live within that moment. From little comforts to deep internal struggles, these works aim to capture segments of time, hold them close, then release them from his mind.

www.instagram.com/gr3mlin.k1ng

LEVIATHAN O’NEIL

LEVIATHAN’S WORK SERVE AS A MEANS OF EXAMINING PAST AND PRESENT, PLEASANT AND UNPLEASANT.

LEIGH OVIATT

Leigh Oviatt grew up in a family of artists, farmers, and educators on a cattle ranch in Bozeman, Montana. She spent most of her adult life in the Pacific Northwest, and moved to New Mexico from the rugged Oregon Coast in 2017. She has been immersed in art since she was a small child. Throughout her life she has explored weaving, painting, jewelry fabrication, film and digital photography, and has degrees in Landscape Design and Film Production. She was an active member of The Darkroom Group at Lightbox Photographic Gallery in Astoria, Oregon, and has shown her photography in multiple group and solo shows in Oregon and Texas. She is continually inspired by her travels, road trips off the beaten path, and the natural environment. She now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she weaves, grows succulents, takes photos, and spends time exploring with her crazy rescue animals.

www.leighoviatt.com

LEIGH IS CONTINUALLY INSPIRED BY HER TRAVELS, ROAD TRIPS OFF THE BEATEN PATH, AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT.

While Leigh has had past success with her beloved photography career, her passion now lies with fiber art. Weaving is a very slow, thoughtful process and has become Leigh’s meditation practice, rhythmically layering multiple textures, colors and shapes line by line to create a modern take on an ancient art form. Each piece begins with a bold color palette and naturally unfolds as the colors flow into soft, tactile patterns. The tapestries blend many types of fiber including small batch, kettle dyed Merino wool, Color Core yarn from Love Fest Fibers, and an assortment of colorful and textural rope, wool, cotton, bamboo, and hemp yarn from around the globe.

LOUIE PEREA

Louie Perea (Santa Fe, NM, b. 1999) is an artist based in New Mexico. With a deep interest in self-expression and identity, Louie creates work focused on building new narratives of representation for other Black, Queer, and Underrepresented individuals. In many instances, Louie’s work uses photography to embrace the uniqueness and identity of those in front of the lens while deconstructing conventional perceptions of beauty and self-expression. Louie believes that photography can be used to reclaim the action of image-making and its connection to ‘othering.’ Louie instead views the camera as a tool to build relations of care that allow others to self-actualize their pleasures and themselves. Louie received their BA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Psychology from the University of New Mexico.

Louie’s work attempts to reclaim the tool of photography and shift its colonial history of othering in order to illustrate the vastness of the black experience and its complex relationship with the white gaze. Wielding the camera as a weapon for expression and critique, Louie aims to disrupt and challenge the dominant narratives surrounding identity and representation. Through this decolonization of the lens, Louie attempts to rebuild their identity as a Black and Queer individual while generating commentary on what ‘Blackness’ truly is.

www.louieperea.com

LOUIE AIMS TO DISRUPT AND CHALLENGE THE DOMINANT NARRATIVES SURROUNDING IDENTITY AND REPRESENTATION.

ROCÍO RODRIGUEZ

Rocío Rodriguez is a freelance artist and photographer. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, she has lived in the United States for almost 8 years. She has a Master’s degree in architecture and works part-time as a project manager. Rocío is studying a sculpture and a painting certificate taking one or two classes per semester at the Santa Fe Community College. For her sculptures she uses simple materials that would have ended up in the trash, such as paper from delivery packages, twigs cut from gardening, and even leftover construction materials to create self-portrait-inspired sculptures that she calls “creatures” and blocks that represent emotions and personal experiences. Other aspects of her work include self-portraits using a digital camera to capture different sides of her.

Rocío’s work is very personal, her work represents inner struggles and different versions of herself. She categorizes her work into three kinds. The first is “the blocks” which are a kind of a diary, each “block” represents an emotion, a memory, or a feeling, and these blocks combined form who she is. Then we have the “creatures”, which she considers self-portraits, they represent her past and her childhood growing up in a poor neighborhood in Mexico. Plants are a constant inspiration, twigs are weak and break easily, but roots can be very strong and can break concrete foundations, a contrast that she often uses in her pieces. Lately, Rocío has been experimenting with digital photography selfportraits where she has become her own muse. She says “No one will see me the way I see myself”. Rocío hopes to inspire others to find beauty in dark places with her art.

www.rociorodriguez.studio

ROCÍO’S WORK IS VERY PERSONAL, HER WORK REPRESENTS INNER STRUGGLES AND DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF HERSELF.

ROW SÄRKELÄ

Row Särkelä is a textile and performance artist from Tiwaland. Särkelä’s work explores the transformative potential of adornment as a thresholding practice into other ways of being. Särkelä’s practice centers on creating wearable textile and fiber-based sculptures and movement rituals that adorn, protect, and extend the body. Särkelä is currently an apprentice in the Rio Grande style of weaving with Centinela Traditional Arts, is a participant in hide tanning rituals, and has shown large-scale wet felted churro work at Currents New Media. Särkelä’s dance work has been commissioned by Wise Fool Santa Fe and OOZE Albuquerque. They have shown butoh work internationally, been in residency at Fiberhouse Collective, were a featured textile artist at PASEO Festival 2019, and were a 2020 Brooklyn Arts Council grantee. Särkelä is a 2023 Fulcrum Fund recipient, alongside collaborators Joseline Mendoza and Isabel Tafoya, for their movement and costume design work.

Row Särkelä makes costumes and performances that are playful, kinky, creepy, and sometimes disgusting. Costume and adornment are gateways for experimentation and ritual, rather than products to purchase. Bodies can enter Särkelä’s needle-felted garments and feel tightly animal, interacting with the barnyard/graveyard/compost scent of the raw churro fleece. Bodies can enter Särkela’s larger-than-life sculptural environments constructed from fleece and discarded chicken wire and embrace the body’s capacity to shed, disintegrate, and slither. The garments’ tightness allow the ribs to feel their edges against the animal feeling of the felt, while the looseness of the massive sculptural form allow breath to navigate the gap between body and costume. The tight and loose spaces (outfit/habitat) embrace the repulsive and alluring in order to facilitate different forms of discomfort and pleasure, expand the breath in different directions, & break habitual patterns of moving and storytelling. Särkelä’s work emanates a death clown energy.

rowsarkela.com

SÄRKELÄ’S WORK EXPLORES THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF ADORNMENT AS A THRESHOLDING PRACTICE INTO OTHER WAYS OF BEING.

ZUYVA SEVILLA

Zuyva Sevilla is a semi-sentient collection of atoms feebly trying to understand everything around them. As an interdisciplinary artist, his work aims to compose, collect and culminate in an interpretation for the inherent chaos of the universe, inspired by everything from the proto-scientific to the metaphysical. Methods within digital fabrication, sculpture and physical computing are key research tools. Sevilla studied New Media Art at the University of North Texas, working on research projects in intermedia performance, projection mapping, and virtual reality. He was named one of Southwest Contemporary’s 2023 Top 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now, as well as one of the 2023 SURFACE Emerging Artists by the Harwood Art Center.

Zuyva Sevilla’s work explores the fundamental infrastructure of existence and perception through sculpture, video, and digital media. They create new interpretations of universal chaos and engage with consumption concerns, highlighting the paradox of producing energy-focused work. Sevilla’s sculptures dissect light and heat movement into active choreographies, utilizing industrial materials, repurposed tools, physical computing, and digital fabrication. In his video work, computer simulations offer windows into new possibilities and control of elementary units. Ultimately, Sevilla’s practice is an auto-didactic exploration of elusive concepts, emphasizing an experimental and experiential self-study using tools of perception and creation.

www.zuyvasevilla.com

SEVILLA’S PRACTICE IS AN AUTODIDACTIC EXPLORATION OF ELUSIVE CONCEPTS, EMPHASIZING AN EXPERIMENTAL SELF-STUDY USING TOOLS OF PERCEPTION AND CREATION.

THEH-WAH-HO^ PAH-HUN^-LEH (KEEP RESPECT

PAH-HUN^-LEH KAH-XAH BE

RESPECT FOR YOUR PEOPLE FIRST)

CORTNEY YELLOWHORSE-METZGER, MEMBER OF THE OSAGE NATION, CONFRONTS THE HISTORIES HER PEOPLE EXPERIENCED DURING COLONIZATION AND THE REMOVAL OF THE OSAGE NAMES THROUGH A COMBINATION OF STORYTELLING UTILIZING CERAMIC OBJECTS, PERFORMANCE, AND THE RECLAMATION OF HER TRADITIONAL NAME.

Theh-wah-ho^ Pah-hun^-leh Kah-xah Be addresses ideas of cultural identity and connection to those that came before. As a registered Osage citizen and daughter of a white cowboy father, Yellowhorse-Metzger confronts the pain of colonization while paying respect to her ancestors. Letting the clay speak for itself by keeping most of it unglazed she opens a dialog with the clay and her hands. She purposefully leaves each finger print in the clay to strengthen the connection to the material. Using the handprint, a symbol that when worn on Osage regalia means friendship, Yellowhorse-Metzger invokes reciprocity with her ancestors. The cutting of her braid is a rejection to the term “half breed” or mixed blood and is a way of healing her own personal pain tied to those words. Comparing her braid to that of a horse tail she hopes to create a conversation about blood quantum and the hurtful history of otherness. But is also a nod to the deep history that horses have played on both sides of her family.

EACH YEAR ONE ARTIST RECEIVES THE HARWOOD ART CENTER SOLO EXHIBITION AWARD, PRESENTED ANNUALLY FOR ARTISTIC EXCELLENCE, ORIGINALITY OF VISION AND DEDICATION TO PRACTICE. THE SELECTED ARTIST WORKS FOR A YEAR WITH SUPPORT FROM HARWOOD STAFF TO MAKE A NEW BODY OF WORK TO EXHIBIT THE FOLLOWING YEAR DURING OUR SURFACE EMERGING ARTISTS PROGRAM AT HARWOOD. CORTNEY RECEIVED THIS AWARD IN 2022 AND THIS YEAR, SHOWCASED HER NEW WORK IN THE FRONT GALLERY.

Cortney YellowHorse-Metzger is a mixed media artist living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in ceramics from Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri in 2016. She recently completed her Masters of Fine Arts with an emphasis in ceramics at the University of New Mexico in 2020. Cortney is of Osage decent and spent her summers growing up on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma. Drawing themes from her heritage, Cortney works in many media including video performance, textiles, and raw clay materials harvested from the lands sacred to her and her people.

“I spent my summers growing up on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma learning the traditions of my people. A way of life that has influenced how I navigate the world and my artistic practice. “Drawing from and inspired by my heritage, I work in a variety of media, including video performance, textiles, and raw clay materials harvested from the lands that are sacred to me and my people. I use my body to explore these ideas of identity and create a visual language that conveys the sense of duality that I am experiencing. “My work functions as a bridge within myself to these remembered and forgotten places. It creates a conversation for people who are also in the in-between with me. I’m interested in how the human body can be compared to a vessel and how that relates to culture and tradition.”

HArWood ArT CENTEr 2023 eXHIbITioN cALeNdAr HArWood ArT CENTEr 2023 eXHIbITioN cALeNdAr

Harwood Art Center is dedicated to providing exhibition, audience expansion and professional development opportunities to artists working in any media and from diverse creative fields. Featuring established, emerging, and youth artists, our Galleries Program engages a supportive process from concept development through installation and public opening. For more information, or to learn how to apply, please visit harwoodartcenter.org

JANUARY 18 - FEBRUARY 23

Blossoming: The Artists of ArtStreet, Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless ArtStreet, an outreach program of Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless, presents: Blossoming, a visual representation of the renaissance taking place within the ArtStreet community and featuring a collection of works by individuals, as well as a collaborative installation made by the artists and representatives of ArtStreet.

Reception: Saturday, February 4 | 4:30pm - 6:30pm

MARCH 8 - APRIL 13

ENCOMPASS: A Multi-Generational Art Event

An annual celebration that is both a reflection of and an offering to our community, Encompass features Open Studios, art making activites, installations by student artists, and four invitational exhibitions including:

Grief Movement: Goathead Studios

Archive of Memory: Juliana Coles

Reception: Saturday, April 1 | 4:00pm - 8:00pm

APRIL 26 - JUNE 1

Aging... A Female’s Perspective: Susan Roden

A multi-platform installation comprised of fine art dresses, mixed media tondos and printed words culled from anonymous surveys, centralizing upon the female perspective on aging’s physical and emotional impacts.

We Are the Gods: Jamie Rose

This exhibition, which consists of large-scale figurative drawings and glass, celebrates the beauty and power of those who have in any way lived the female experience.

Reception + Artist Talks: Saturday, May 13 | 4:30pm

SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico

Harwood Art Center’s annual juried exhibition, professional development and endowed awards program honors emerging artists currently living and working in New Mexico.

Tears of My Ancestors: Cortney YellowHorse-Metzger

Solo Exhibition Award Winner of our 2022 SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico program.

Reception + Artist Talks: Saturday, June 24 | 5:00pm - 7:00pm

AUGUST 9 - SEPTEMBER 14

Ithacan Mythologies: Harley Kirschner

Ithacan Mythologies merges Art Nouveau renditions of Greek Mythologies and baroque Vanitas with trans and queer ecologies and the embrace of the continuous apocalypse. Using discarded mirrors and glass, laser etching, furniture design, oil paint and metalsmithing, Harley Kirschner creates works that feel, at once, unmakeable and deeply personal.

miss me when i’m gone: mk

By printing larger-than-life reproductions of archival photographs from the artist’s family photo albums, and incorporating different media such as found/stolen objects, printmaking techniques, and sculpture, they confront their identity as well as their upbringing as it transitions to their present-day life as an adult, and within the function of photographic memory.

Reception + Artist Talks: Saturday, August 26 | 4:30pm - 6:30pm

SEPTEMBER 20 - OCTOBER 26

Residency for Art & Social Justice

Harwood’s Residency for Art & Social Justice features and supports artists working at the intersections of creative expression and social justice. The nine month program includes a private studio at Harwood, artist and material honoraria, project support and a public exhibition.

Reception + Artist Talks: Saturday, October 14 | 4:30pm - 6:30pm

DECEMBER 1 & 2

12x12 Fundraising Exhibitions

Harwood’s annual fundraising exhibitions: 12x12, 6x6 and Prelude featuring work by established, emerging and youth artists from New Mexico. This event includes ~200 works that remain anonymous until sold – for the flat rates of $144 (12”x12”) or $36 (6”x6”). Prelude highlights the intersections of art, design and daily living with works by notable New Mexico artists.

Exhibition Reception: Friday, December 1 | 5:30pm - 7:30pm 12x12 Online Store Opens: Saturday, December 2 | 6:00pm

ABOUT HARWOOD ART CENTER & ESCUELA DEL SOL MONTESSORI

HARWOOD ART CENTER’S GALLERIES is dedicated to providing exhibition, audience expansion and professional development opportunities to artists working in any media and from diverse creative fields. Our gallery program is curated and managed by our Chief Programs Officer and Associate Directors of Opportunity and Engagement. Artists are invited to exhibit during three of our annual capstone events, Encompass, Residency for Art & Social Justice & 12x12, the rest of our exhibitions are awarded to individuals and groups through a competitive application process. Most of our applications are free to apply, any collected fees allocated to replenishing Harwood’s endowed cash awards for the program. Each featured exhibition is a supportive process, we work with the artists from concept development to installation in the galleries. For our 2021 exhibiting artists, we have developed a hybrid offering of both in person and virtual programming. For each exhibition we create comprehensive outreach and digital materials including exhibition catalogs, virtual galleries and artist talks to support the unique visions and voices of our gallery artists.

Seeded in 1991, Harwood Art Center blooms the philosophy of our parent organization Escuela del Sol Montessori, with recognition that learning and expression offer the most resilient pathways to global citizenship, justice and peace. Harwood engages the arts as a catalyst for lifelong learning, cultural enrichment and social change, with programming for every age, background and income level. We believe that equitable access to the arts and opportunities for creative expression are integral to healthy individuals and thriving communities. In all of our work, we cultivate inclusive, reflective environments where everyone feels cared for. We nurture long-term, multi-faceted relationships with participants, building programs with and for diverse communities of Albuquerque. We integrate the arts with social justice, professional and economic growth, and education to cultivate a higher collective quality of life in New Mexico.

For 50 years, Escuela del Sol, an independent Montessori school, has nurtured selfdiscovery, social responsibility and passion for learning in our students. Each day Escuela supports students from ages 18 months to 13 years on their real-world quests to excel academically and to develop the skills they need for meaningful, happy and successful futures.

HARWOOD ART CENTER’S OFFICIAL GALLERY & EXHIBITION PHOTOGRAPHER

We are so thrilled to have an official Harwood Photographer for our galleries program this year! We are able to present the SURFACE Emerging Artists of NM Award and Microgrant of $250 to each of this year’s artists thanks to the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, New Mexico Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and the McCune Foundation.

Aziza Murray is a New Mexico based artist working primarily in photography. In 2015 she graduated with an MFA from the University of New Mexico where she also worked as a pictorial archiving fellow for the Center for Southwest Research. Since then, Aziza has worked in different capacities in the film industry in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, further piquing her interest in cinematography. Much of her work stems from a well of nostalgia for objects and moments, the materiality of photography, and her personal history—from experiencing tragic loss at an early age, to her multilayered experiences as a biracial person growing up in Washington, DC. She has shown her work in DC at Connersmith and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Albuquerque at the Harwood Art Center, the UNM Art Museum and the National Hispanic Cultural Center and, at MASS Gallery in Austin, TX.

azizamurray.com

azizamurray@gmail.com

MANY THANkS TO OUR geneROUS paRTnERS. We are deeply grateful to The FUNd at Albuquerque Community Foundation, Bernalillo County, City of Albuquerque / Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, The Geissman Family, The Abrams Family, Marjorie Fasman Trust, McCune Charitable Foundation, New Mexico Arts and National Endowment for the Arts for their support of SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico, as well as to Marion & Kathryn Crissey and Reggie Gammon for establishing our endowed awards for this program, and to Meghan Ferguson Mráz and Valerie Roybal for their unwavering support and constant inspiration – and for whom we named new annual awards in 2019. SURFACE would not be possible without our extraordinary local collaborators at A Good Sign, Albuquerque Art Business Association, Zendo Art & Coffee, and UNM School of Architecture and Planning.