Star Garden Gallery: Art & Adventures under the New Mexico Sky
These paintings were created during the summer of 2020 for a show at the Old School Gallery in El Morro, in the fall of 2020. This is my artist’s statement for the show:
Here and There: Landscapes and Memories
I think it was in 2010, on a road trip in Texas, I turned to my friend and said, “This view is just what I needed.” She wondered what I meant. I tried to explain how traveling rural routes to Big Bend was a tonic for my city-dwelling self.
Vast. Uncluttered. Open. Space.
The distant horizon-- with a silhouette of land-- was refreshing and soothing to see. In June (2020), I found myself on the same road, and a similar calm washed over me. This time it was a more common, familiar delight as I now live in a rural spot which provides many expansive vistas. A few of these paintings are memories of horizon views.
A few other paintings are of ancient dwelling sites of the indigenous people of this region. When the coronavirus struck the Navajo and Zuni communities with devastating loss, my heart ached and felt helpless. I combed through old photos and journal sketches from visits to these special spots. I was somehow searching for answers from the ancestors; somehow trying to put the wrongs of our present day world into a larger perspective of time and space on this planet. These paintings are meant to honor and give reverence to the land, its original inhabitants, and the present day descendants. I know that a painting doesn’t help solve a pandemic or centuries of brutal inequities, but it was a personal way for me to spend time reflecting, acknowledging, and celebrating these places; a hopeful prayer. ~A. Sparks (10/2020)