Light, Wood, Wax, Fire

Light, Wood, Wax, Fire

 

Nine Santa Fe artists use elemental materials and methods to create with light, wood, wax, and fire. This exhibition is an elegy to the organic. Life sways inside every piece:

a dramatic cloud formation pinned against the sky; a flower portrait at once sculptural and ethereal; a table that evokes the spirit of the wood from which it emerged; the shimmering functionality of a micaceous clay pot; the luster and patina in the marriage of wax and rust; the lush geometry of light portrayed in a shower of sunlight; the wild stillness of birds on a branch; the contained fire radiating from a ceramic sculpture; the watchfulness embedded in a closely observed landscape.

 

These artists understand what it means to be of this world, to be comfortable with the materials and methods they have chosen, and to be greedy for their own moments of alchemy. Each in their own different ways, these artists live inside light, wood, wax, and fire.

 

The exhibition runs from November 10 through December 8, 2012 in The La Tienda Exhibit Space at Eldorado, Santa Fe.  Gallery hours: 11 am to 5 pm, Wednesday through Saturday. 

Africa: The Holocausts of Rwanda and Sudan

 

Opening Reception:  Saturday, October 6 from 5 - 7 pm

 

Show runs through November 3.

 

 

Africa, The Holocausts of Rwanda and Sudan is a color photographic essay with a text by Lucian Niemeyer.  The exhibit first appeared at The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware.  The exhibit has since appeared in many other venues with the last being at the Maxwell Museum at the University of New Mexico, where over 160 images were displayed over a year. A book by the same name was published by The University of New Mexico Press in 2005.  It was followed by the book Darfur in 2007.  The book Africa was nominated by the University for a Pulitzer Prize.  Though it did not win, a copy of the book was given to every United States Senator by a foundation in Virginia.

 

Recently Mr. Niemeyer gave lectures to students at the University of Alberta and Calgary University in Canada.  He was made an honorary citizen of Calgary and presented a white hat for his work.  Recently this honor was given to the Dalai Lama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.  Africa, The Holocausts of Rwanda and Sudan tells the story of ten years of genocide in Africa.  The first chapter reveals, by image and story, the terrible genocide, and aftermath, in Rwanda where over one million innocent people lost their lives in a horrible massacre.  The images were taken in 1994 in the refugee camps.  The second chapter illustrates the slaves taken in raids by Arabs wanting slaves in Northern Sudan. The slaves were being traded back by a non-governmental organization for $35 each, or the price of a goat.  The third chapter is the story of the proclaimed Holy Jihad on the south and demonstrates the conflict between Islam and Christianity.  The fourth chapter takes place in the Nuba Mountains.  Thousands of years of migration by the Nubians to flee the tyranny of Egypt, then the Arab onslaught resulted in 30 different tribes and languages to the mountains up the Nile.  The Arab government has determined that they want these people to practice radical Islam and to adopt the Sharia law.  Over 2.5 million people have lost their lives in the genocide which few people know about.