Strangers things Long Echo at the Center for Contemporary Arts

LONG ECHO

You can get tangled in Long Echo, the new exhibition by Strangers Collective — specifically in the complex, layered taut-string piece System2 by Alex Gill. “Alex is a printmaker,” said collective co-director Kyle Farrell. “He used ink and string in our last show, Narrows, last spring at the Santa Fe Community Gallery, and he wanted to go deep with one. He wanted to get away from making a pretty picture.”

Hanging nearby in the lobby gallery at the Center for Contemporary Arts is Dissolve 1-9. It’s a series of photographic panels — airscape abstractions — that document a trip. “I was riding in a plane from Virginia, where my family lives,” said the artist, Austin Eichelberger, who captured the nine images by shooting out of the airplane window. “I was fascinated with the haziness, and the sun started setting, and when I saw the colors I got, I knew it was something I wanted to work with.”

There are works by 11 other artists and 12 writers in the show, which is curated by Strangers Collective’s Jordan Eddy, Farrell, and Gill. Included are paintings, sculptures, drawings, and new-media works, as well as an array of zines and the book Strangers Volume

One, which is basically a journal of the collective’s events. “We made the book, and the images are basically in order of when we’ve exhibited, stretching back to our living-room shows,” Eddy said.

The two-year-old group’s mission is to showcase talented artists and writers who deserve exposure but have not found representation and to foster serious critical arts dialogue in Santa Fe. “It was originally designed because we wanted some sort of deadlines