Chasing Santa Fe: 2012-07-15

7.19.2012

Japan Comes To Santa Fe

A R T S A N T A F E

The 12th Annual Art Santa Fe this past weekend showcased more than 30 international galleries representing both celebrated and emerging contemporary artists. I decided to focus my camera on the Japanese art...it beckoned.

Photographs by C. Whitney-Ward

Anjin Abe

Abe (pronounced ah-bay) is one Japan's secret treasures of

traditional wood-fired Bizen pottery.

Heis Gallery - Fukuoka, Japan

Ryuma Imai

Emamel and Acrylic on Paper

Heis Gallery - Fukuoka, Japan

WAA KITAYABU

Zen like drawings made with millions of pencil stokes...

" I draw a picture with only one pencil.

I believe that soul dwells in one drawn line. "

Systema Gallery - Osaka, Japan

KATSU ISHIDA

Japanese ink on paper

Systema Gallery - Osaka, Japan

Yayoi Kusama

Silk screened and "painted" with glitter.

Watanabe Fine Art - Osaka, Japan

Yayoi Kusama

A wildly eccentric and successful Japanese pop artist (she's 83) profiled above in W Magazine. A retrospective of her work is at the Whitney Museum of American Art

through September 30th, 2012.

Yasuo Jo

Oil and Acrylic on Canvas

Watanabe Fine Art - Osaka, Japan

Hiroshi Nomoto

Abstract Metal Sculpture - versed in nature

Gallery Sudoh - Kanagawa, Japan

And a special thanks to Santa Fean Eiko Miki
who guided me through the show.

www.artsantafe.com

7.15.2012

Santero Nicholas Herrara

A L E G E N D

A T

L E G E N D S S A N T A F E

Photos and Text by C. Whitney-Ward

NICHOLAS HERRARA is as bold, fun and unique as the carved and painted bultos, retablos, altars, doors and mixed media pieces that he creates. Each work reflects and challenges the rich heritage of traditional Santero art.

Herrara is a rebel and a genius. His show - MESTIZO - just opened at

Legends Santa Fe, and is a visual treat revealing his political bent, satirical

world-view and complex inner heart.

His work is in private collections and in major museums including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.

He works from a large, light-filled studio in El Rito in the house that his grandparents built. His family has been in New Mexico for fifteen generations and in El Rito for six. His great uncle - Jose Ines Herrara - also a carver, was known as El Santero de Muerto - the Saint Maker of Death.