Santa Fe: High Desert High! at Smoke the Moon

 

Jon Cowan, I Saw the End, 2021, oil and acrylic on canvas, 12 x 10 in.

For my first post in quite a while, I wanted to present a photo essay of a recent show in Santa Fe. 

High Desert High! at Smoke the Moon features work by 22 artists from LA to London and many places in between  and is billed as "A summer salon of important paintings celebrating the Dez."

In much of the work presented here, there is a strange sense of spare tranquility punctuated by an underlying sense of expectation (Aryo Toh Djojo, and Will Bruno to name two).

While Rat Face, a painter from the U.K. uses an economical palette to depict deftly rendered scenes of futile desperation and dark humor. 

There is a conceptual complexity in her piece, Head in the Sand as well as in the always sublime work of Jon Cowan.  Both present us with a glimmer of a somber uncertainty (or certainty) that sets their painting apart from much of the vibrant, humorously cool and laid-back work in the show.

In addition to the artists mentioned above, I want to take note of Lydia Maria Pfeffer's strange and playful painting Lucy's Ice Cream as well as her surreally intimate and fun series of Pink Lizzard drawings.

The energy and attention to craft of all the artists and the curation- the way all of the works interacted with one another- made this an exciting and welcome event and I'm looking forward to the next offering from this new and soon-to-be important space.

Info:

High Desert High!

Smoke the Moon

101 West Marcy Street

Suite 203

Santa Fe, NM

Rat Face, Head in the Sand, 2021, acrylic on wood, 9 x 11.25 in.

Aryo Toh Djojo, Granny Panties,  2021, acrylic on canvas over panel, 11 x 14 in.
Aryo Toh Djojo, Lotaburger, 2021, acrylic on canvas over panel, 11 x 14.5 in.

Will Bruno, After the Deluge, 2021, oil on canvas and artists frame, 24 x 18 in.

Paige Turner-Uribe, Buzzard Land (detail), 2019, oil on canvas, 22 x 18 in.

Danielle Winger, The Mommy Tree, 2021, oil on panel, 16 x 12 in.

Jon Cowan, Two Voids Rising and Setting on a Dark Octagonal Track, 2021, oil and acrylic on linen over panel, 10 in. octagon.

Lydia Maria Pfeffer, Lucy's Ice Cream, 2021, oil on canvas.

Alex Cutler, Angus, 2021, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 17 x 21 in.

Matthew Rosenquist, Maynard Dixon Van, 2021, acrylic on carved wood, 15 x 5.5 x 6 in.

Devon Clapp, Terminal Beach (detail), 2019, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in.

Javi Ramirez, I'm Back, what I miss?, 2021, acrylic on canvas over panel, 36 x 36 in.

Julia Schwartz, Aurora, 2011, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 in.

Smoke the Moon is located one block north of the Plaza on W MarcyStreet between Lincoln and Washington.