Three women who experience and revel in the mysteries of nature are featured in the exhibition Sapient Symbolism at the Canyon Road facility of Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico, opening August 14 and continuing through September 6.
The gallery notes that the exhibition “features three women who focus on regional landscapes, animals and its peoples in an effort to convey our relationships with all three and our connection with Earth Mother.”
Liz Wolf, Shapeshifter, bronze, ed. 8 of 25, 12 x 4 x 6"
Sushe Felix was brought up in Colorado, influenced by the American regionalist and modernist art movements from the 1930s and ’40s, especially those who painted in Colorado and New Mexico. She paints landscapes in which she seeks to “instill a sense of joy along with a feeling of mystery and playfulness.”
The energetic, sinuous and geometric patterns of modernism inspire her painting Upon Reflection, with the forms of the moonlit landscape reduced to elemental, suggestive shapes. Her landscapes are imagined from her experiences of them on road trips and walks. She often photographs an interesting group of forms and translates them into a drawing for her finished paintings, striving for a balance of energy and stillness.
Sushe Felix, Upon Reflection, acrylic on panel, 12 x 18"
Robin Laws sculpts the animals that have surrounded her throughout her life. She says, “My husband Myron and I share our ranchland home with three Angora goats, 20 chickens, five geese, four ducks, two ponies, two horses, eight cats, one dog and three much-loved burros.” The three much-loved burros—Jennifer, Elizabeth and Libby—appear in her sculpture Swat Team. During one hot and muggy summer “flies arrived in droves.” Animal owners treated them with fly repellant to lessen their relentless attacks. Laws looked out one day and saw the burros huddled unusually close together. As she watched them she realized a recent heavy rain had washed off the repellant and they were taking matters into their own hands. She says, “No fly in his right mind would brave the gauntlet of switching tails, flapping ears, stomping hooves and flying dirt. It was a team effort and it was working.”
Robin Laws, Swat Team, bronze, ed. 2 of 17, 45 x 52 x 24"
Liz Wolf moved to Santa Fe in 1997 from the Midwest. She says, “If I had to describe my work in one word it would be animism, which is derived from the Latin word anima meaning breath or soul. Animism is one of man’s oldest beliefs, that in every object a spirit or soul exists. When I am sculpting, I feel the sculpture takes part in its own creation.”
She is a keen observer of animal life and is particularly attracted to the hawks that soar over her garden or sit elegantly in the trees. “I see hawks perched high in a tree or flying endless circles in the sky observing their surroundings with extraordinary vision,” she says. “The hawk teaches me to become like them and pay close attention to all that surrounds me, to see my boundless world from a bird’s-eye view.”
Her bronze Shapeshifter depicts the physical transformation, “the taking on or understanding what I see in a hawk.” —
Manitou Galleries
225 Canyon Road • Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 986-9833 • www.manitougalleries.com
Powered by Froala Editor
