Five Santa Fe artists explore theme of decay
Show will run in Rotunda through Dec. 9
Decay can lead to transformation, whether through an object taking on new and interesting forms, or by becoming part of something new.
A dying plant, for example, can strew seeds around it to give birth to new plants.
This idea takes artistic form in “The Alchemy of Decay,” an exhibit focusing on the work of five local artists that will fill the Rotunda of the State Capitol until early December.
“It’s going to be dynamite,” said Patricia Pearce, head of printmaking and book arts at Santa Fe Community College, and one of the artists in the show.
The idea for the show took form when she and Marilyn Chambers, SFCC instructor for book arts, were talking about putting together an exhibit.
“I’m fascinated with alchemy,” Pearce said. “I like to take old things and turn them into something new. We decided to do ‘decay’ because things are in the process of transformation, but have beauty if you really look at them.”
They started talking with other artists about their own ideas of the show’s theme, and soon brought Amy Parrish, Bill Skrips and Ann Laser on board for the show, which was accepted by the Rotunda Gallery.
And it’s an appropriate spot for such a theme, Pearce said, because Santa Fe and New Mexico are so old and filled with history, with places and things transforming over the decades.
One of her pieces in the show came from watching a sunflower as it dried out. Pearce said she became “almost weepy” in observing its beauty through the changes. So she made a wax mold of the flower and cast it in bronze, holding that beauty forever.
“To me, that’s the alchemy of decay,” she said. “Now, it can’t escape.”
Pearce said she has about 15 pieces in the show, many in bronze, but also a couple of pieces that involve collage and a couple of assemblages incorporating printmaking.
One of her installations, called “Abandoned Fleet,” is a collection of bronze boats sitting on her interpretation of a coral reef, she added.
“The longer you research a project like this, the more it takes on a new life,” Pearce said, explaining that, as she and the other artists read into the background of the theme, “Maybe we got more than what we first started thinking about it.”
Parrish’s work explores the decay of the feminine, Pearce said. “Her installation pieces are, in my opinion, absolutely amazing.” Some of the pieces are reminiscent of dresses or blouses, often rendered in the form of book art, but also presented in paintings of aprons. Others are more abstract, evoking lace and memory, or relics left behind.
Skrips contributes assemblages from found objects, “very fanciful, some amusing, some a little bit eerie,” Pearce said. “They’re all quite interesting. They take alchemy to another level.”
Many of the works contain human figures, but with their limbs, trunks and heads rearranged amid other objects, many with wheels or home-like scenes. He also contributes portraits on plywood, painted in almost a Ann Laser made “Mellow” with mixed media and tea bags. cartoonish style.
And tea bags are Laser’s focus, incorporating them as surface, texture or collage in her abstract artworks. “She sees magic in a tea bag as it transforms after someone has enjoyed a cup of tea,” Pearce said.
“She has gotten a number of residencies in other countries to study the tea habits of other cultures,” she said. “Now people send her (used) tea bags from around the world.”
Chambers presents works primarily in the form of book art, sometimes involving a sculptural component, but all featuring the muted colors of various stages of aging paper. Pearce said Chambers, Parrish and herself are members of the Santa Fe Book Arts Group, which staged a show in the Rotunda last year.
A pop-up show that previewed some of the works in “The Alchemy of Decay” was held last November at St. John’s College and received a good reception there, Pearce said. Many additional works will be included in the exhibit at the Capitol, she said.