Erin Currier has been to roughly 50 countries and, reflecting upon her travels, writes, “My artistic practice has taken me on a lifelong ‘shoestring’ adventure—packed with action and magic—that has variously found me training in Beijing with Kung Fu masters; tango dancing in Buenos Aires; in riots in Chile; eating dinner on dirt floors with Tibetan exiles in Nepal and at the dinner tables of famed filmmakers in Italy...”
Tanguera, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 60 x 48"
Experiences like these are the wellspring out of which Currier weaves together mixed media paintings as richly textured and diverse as the cultures she has immersed herself in, with the goal of illuminating how our commonalities as human beings far outweigh our differences.
Her latest body of work focuses on the people, places and ideas that have been instrumental in her development as an artist—in this case Tibetan Buddhism, the Buddhist Cave Temples of Ajanta, India; Italian modernist poetry, the magic of Argentine tango in Buenos Aires and New Mexico’s unique traditions.
Cave Temple Dancer, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 24 x 12"
“Cave Temples and Compañeros, like all of my life’s work, celebrates all that we share as human beings,” says Currier. “Having been more rooted than ever these past two years— dedicating myself to daily dance classes and also to a large scale mural, I have had the opportunity to reflect on my art and my life’s trajectory as an humanist artist, and on all that has inspired me.”
Currier’s new series is the subject of a solo exhibition titled Cave Temples and Compañeros, opening at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe on June 28 and running through July 13.
“In the Cave Temples and Compañeros series, the idea of inspiration is multi-layered. For example, on one level, I portrayed Saba, Montale and Ungaretti—poets who inspired me as an artist,” Currier says, referencing show piece Modernist Italian Poets. “On another level, these subjects are themselves inspired, and are portrayed as being engaged in creative action. Carlos Gardel as the Buddhais an interplay between the tango capitol of the world that inspired Gardel—who in turn inspired the city and the world of tango.”
Modernist Italian Poets, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 48 x 60"
Several pieces in the show, including Cave Temple Dancer, revisit Currier’s time in India and the Buddhist cave temples of Ajanta, which are filled with murals, sculptures and ceiling paintings dating from the 2nd century BCE.
Currier adds both tactile depth and layers of meaning to her work by incorporating discarded bits of commercial waste and litter collected during her travels and closer to home in ways that relate to that particular subject. For example, for her piece celebrating musician Carlos Gardel, she collaged with tango-related trash—flyers, tickets, posters, sheet music—gathered in Buenos Aires.
Carlos Gardel as the Buddha, acrylic and mixed media on panel, 36 x 24"
“That’s the material of our day and age,” says Currier. “In the past, people used clay and wood and stone and still do—they used whatever was close at hand, and in our day and age, that’s trash. It’s everywhere. It is political in the sense that it is recycled art, so it has that dimension. But it’s also a spiritual practice in that I’m taking something discarded and considered ugly and with no value, and transforming it into something of beauty.”
An opening reception for Cave Temples and Compañeros will be held on June 28 from 5 to 7 p.m. —
Blue Rain Gallery 544 S. Guadalupe Street • Santa Fe, NM 87501 • (505) 954-9902 www.blueraingallery.com
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