New Mexico Arts names two artists as fellows
For a second consecutive year, New Mexico Arts offered two residential fellowships to support the work of local and national artists. The Artist-in-Residence programs provides artists with time and space to develop their creative practice, to further connect with rich cultures throughout New Mexico, and to bring their artwork and experience to the public through engagement and participation.
This year’s artists include a multidisciplinary, lens-based artist as well as a multidisciplinary musical composer and performance artist who will work at the Lincoln Historic Site.
Marcus Xavier Chormicle
Emerging Las Cruces-based artist, Marcus Xavier Chormicle (Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians/Chicano), creates work that focuses primarily on family, memory and the intersection of class, race and history in the American Southwest. Through a site-specific photography practice, he aims to connect the history of place to current circumstances of his family as the subject of imagery.
Chormicle received a bachelor’s degree in journalism with a minor in digital marketing and studio art from Arizona State University.
Upon completion of his academic studies, he returned home and founded the Cristian Anthony Vallejo Memorial Gallery, an art space in downtown Las Cruces. The gallery serves as an extension of his artistic mission to hold space for family, assert their inherent value through art and engage community.
While in residence, Chormicle will explore the legacy of the oryx species in southern New Mexico as it relates to colonizing histories of land and peoples in the region. He intends to deepen his understanding of the oryx habitat as well as interrogate visual representations of the animal through materiality across the Lincoln National Forest, Sacramento Mountains and surrounding communities.
Dylan McLaughlin
Dylan McLaughlin (Diné) is a multimedia artist, educator and researcher who looks critically to share stories of ecological extraction and climate change, with special attention to their impact on Indigenous communities, through his creative practice.
McLaughlin received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in new media art from Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts and later went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in art and ecology from the University of New Mexico. He is a 2022 recipient of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation LIFT Award and has participated in exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, Site Santa Fe, 516 Arts and others.
While in residence, McLaughlin will explore algorithmic music composition by drawing upon local data on multi-species migration. He commonly weaves together themes of Diné mythology, ecological data and environmental histories that culminate in experimental music composition and land-based performance.