Beginning September 10, Erin Currier of Santa Fe, New Mexico, will be showcasing a large collection of new works at Blue Rain Gallery. This includes about 12 collage paintings on panel, as well as over 20 framed, mixed media pen, marker and china marker works on archival paper. Currier’s investigation of an individual’s abillity to transform pathos through passion has come together in this unique show, aptly titled Passion, Pathos, and the Human Potential.

“With great poeticism and integrity, Erin Currier’s timely mixed media portraiture visually articulates the emancipatory struggles of peoples around the world. It is alive with the hope that individuals can open their minds to seek necessary change and learn to live under an ethos of shared humanity,” says Denise Phetteplace, executive director at Blue Rain Gallery. Israel “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya, mixed media collage and acrylic on panel, 24 x 18"

This exploration into human suffering, turned into a positive mechanism for change, is also a means for Currier to educate, unify and to be of service. “My new series Passion, Pathos, and the Human Potential honors human excellence in its myriad forms—be it embodied in the bright spirit of female Mariachi musicians, in the powerful words of young poet Amanda Gorman or New Mexico’s chef Fernando Ruiz—a teenage gun-running gangster who uplifted himself and those around him through his passion for cooking and feeding the hungry,” Currier explains. “My new works are meant to transcend our many and growing divisions imposed by power, to instead recognize that all humans suffer, and to celebrate the passions that unite us and allow us to potentially overcome.”Flamenco IV, mixed media pen, ink, China marker and gouache

One such example, pictured here, is Israel “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya, depicting the Nigerian-born unbeatable UFC Middleweight Champion of the World, and best striker of all time, Israel Adesanya—who studies dance as well as martial arts, does charitable work and is a role model for youth throughout Africa and New Zealand, where he now lives, and across the world. Currier says, “He was frequently bullied and credits this, along with his epiphanic viewing of the Thai martial arts film Ong Bak at age 18, as the impetus for becoming a fighter.”

Currier adds, “Another example is Paul Stamets, a shy working-class young man with a stuttering complex whose passion for mushrooms allowed him to cure himself and to become the world’s foremost expert on mycology—and whose numerous books, lectures and actual tinctures have helped people worldwide in healing themselves from disease, illness and depression; boosted their immune systems and cleaned up toxic environments.” Currier’s piece Paul Stamets honors this man’s dedication in a mixed media collage portrait of him holding mushrooms. Paul Stamets, mixed media collage and acrylic on panel, 24 x 18"

Currier achieves her success in rendering such dynamic individuals by experiencing them firsthand, by traveling to every continent over the course of 20 years. Part of every year is spent in foreign lands and in strange and unique settings such as the upper Peruvian Amazon in a Shipibo Village, Joshua Tree National Forest or an ashram at the foot of a volcano in Bali, to name just a few. She says “I keep travel journals and begin to research, develop ideas, sketch, draw and collect trash. Back in the studio, I use these journals for reference and inspiration. For individual and historical portraits, I often work from whatever photographs I can find.”Last Mariachis IV, mixed media pen, ink, China marker and gouache

In addition, Currier’s work begins with sketches and preliminary drawings. “I am excited to notice, and I hope my collectors might notice as well, that this aspect of drawing is more apparent than ever,” she says. “I’m also aware that my palette has become more vivid, vibrant, uplifting and celebratory; an intentional celebration of the subjects and of the human spirit!” —

Blue Rain Gallery
544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 954-9902 • www.blueraingallery.com 

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