Paper hearts: New Mexico Art League finds 'Common Ground' in latest exhibit
Apr. 29—From abstracted lilies and fairies to a portrait of a sad-eyed pooch, the New Mexico Art League has gathered a paper bouquet of works tagged "Common Ground."
Ranging from prints to collage, watercolor, pastel and mixed-media, the pieces will hang at the New Mexico Art League Gallery through May 18. The show features 70 artists showcasing 117 paintings.
Rio Rancho's Carol Mell grew up in Oregon, where she learned to play in the forest, collecting mushrooms and spotting deer and bears in the dark.
Known for her photo encaustic pieces, she plunged into painting as the pandemic lifted.
"I didn't want to do that anymore," she explained. "I had five shows in process that got canceled. I wanted to get the emotions out in paint. It felt really risky."
She created "Market Day" using cold wax and oil on paper. Its abstracted figures flit and dance across the paper canvas while animal silhouettes watch. She had never tried the medium before. She mixed the cold wax with oil and the paint.
"It's like finger painting," she said.
"I wanted to let my body paint," Mell continued. "I was trying to create from the inside."
She let the feelings of fear and anger — "all the negative stuff" — free.
"These figures came out and they were dancing," she explained. "They were like the feeling of when we came back together again. 'Market Day' is the idea of when people can mingle freely.
"I felt like it kind of saved me," Mell added. "I didn't need years of therapy."
Albuquerque artist Jaci Fischer launch a series of animal images for the New Mexico Cancer Center. She had visited the New Mexico State Fair, where she spotted some funny-looking chickens sporting frizzled plumage.
"Their feathers go everywhere," Fischer said. "The feathers just go in the wrong direction. At first, I thought they were sick.
"Chickens conversing over one egg seemed comical to me."
Fischer grew up in Iowa but has lived in California, Colorado and New Mexico. She's been in Albuquerque since 1996. Her father was an artist, but she didn't take her own talent seriously until high school. At first, she wanted to make ceramics.
"I guess it just got so that I drew better than I threw pots," she said.
"I drew more than I painted for a long time," she continued. "I like the line work — the technique of making lines beautiful. It's also inexpensive."
Nambé resident Rosario Glezmir painted her mixed-media piece "Nostalgia" as part of a series on women.
"I was thinking about birth, about women from the late '20s and the beginning of the '30s when women started being more free," she said.
The painting was inspired by the Mexican poet, model and artist Carmen Mondragón, who many considered scandalous.
"She was before Frida (Kahlo.) She was the first Mexican woman artist," Glezmir said. "She was very free. She liked women as well as men. In the '20s of Mexico, that was impossible.
"Her art was very naive," Glezmir continued. "She had a lover who painted landscapes. They had a very toxic relationship."
Glezmir grew up in Mexico, where she owned a wholesale jewelry company employing single and stay-at-home mothers. She sold the business, got divorced and turned to paint for therapy.
For her, "Nostalgia" contains "all the emotions that sometimes women feel that we don't know how to express. This is thinking about the moments we pass by — the things she couldn't do. Maybe she didn't pay attention to herself.
"Her eyes were green and beautiful."
