EYESHINE adrian pijoan HOLY LAND diego medina
Center August 15 - September 15, www.harwoodartcenter.org2022
Harwood Art
COVER: Adrian Pijoan, Stills from Slow Dance, Single channel video, 2022, 1920 x 1080, 8:00; Diego Medina, at the shore of your soul, over the edge of your bed, colored pencil on wood 12”×18”
There is joy in the unknown. Artists Adrian Pijoan and Diego Media bring magic, mystery, and melody to their distinctly original solo exhibitions Eyeshine and Holy Land. In media and manifestation, their practices differ, but in message they share an essence of meaningful curiosity.
Helen Atkins, Jordyn Bernicke & Julia Mandeville Co-Curators & Cooperative Leadership Team, Harwood Art Center
Eyeshine by Adrian Pijoan explores what may lie in the dark - happenings that humans have only caught glimpses of. With minimal light, the transformed gallery space combines video with sculptural installation. Though the space is shadowy, and the subject matter - aliens, Bigfoot, cryptids and more - are sometimes found in scary stories, Adrian’s exhibition is alive with warmth and humor. His exploration of conspiracy and folklore becomes a personal mythology. One that the viewer can easily embody. In this paranormal landscape, Adrian reveals truths that are filled with personhood. It is deeply human to explore the unknown, it is deeply human to seek connection and community, it is deeply human to want to believe.
An artist is a medium, baring to witness the truths of our world, and possibly beyond. Adrian Pijoan and Diego Medina remind their viewers of both the joyful wonder and deep purpose of human myth, fantasy, and understanding. They also remind us to question what has been assumed and remember what may have been forgotten.
Holy Land by Diego Medina captures the sacredness in spaces of antiquity and whimsy. Diego’s expertise as an artist and historian are exemplified in his delicate renderings. Magic and myth become materialized in his drawings that reference ancestral sites, lore, and poetry. Diego blends the seen with the unseen, the real with the somehow more than real, creating glimpses of memory and prophecy. He implores on his viewer to consider the truth of what can be felt better than told, and the reality of what you cannot see but still believe.
4 Pages 4 - 7: Adrian Pijoan, Stills from Slow Dance, Single channel video, 2022, 1920 x 1080, 8:00
Eyeshine is a loving and sometimes bittersweet homage to these stories and the sustenance they provide during difficult times – a vision into both outer space and inner worlds.
A strange light flashes across the night sky. Eerie sounds emanate from a thick patch of woods deep in the mountains. Something slithers beneath the moonlight. You wake from a dream and wonder if it could have been real. You wonder what “real” even means Eyeshineanymore. explores an encounter with the paranormal through an installation of video, animation, and sculpture. Adrian uses his long-running paranormal researcher alter-ego, Dr. Howard, to explore his anxieties that arise from the tension between the horrific real, and the sublime unreal.
EYESHINEPijoan
By Adrian
6
7
“Do aliens traverse the night sky? Does Bigfoot haunt our sylvan forests? Does it That’smatter?the
thing about folklore—the truth is not inevitable. What matters is how these stories reflect our shared hopes, dreams, fears, and traumas. I am drawn to the paranormal because I find my own ecstasies and anxieties in tales of UFOs, cryptids, and the other fantastical horrors that have plagued and delighted humans for centuries. The dark skies of New Mexico provide the perfect tapestry in which to find “them,” and by extension, myself.
These are the voyages of the Starship Adrian. My eternal mission: to seek out new lifeforms, and touch them gently in the night.” - Adrian Pijoan
Pages 8 - 9: Adrian Pijoan, Eyeshine, instllation, 2022, Aziza Murray & Harwood Art Center, All Rights Reserved
12 Pages 10 - 13: Adrian Pijoan, Stills from Slow Dance, Single channel video, 2022, 1920 x 1080, 8:00
www.adrianpijoan.net
adrian pijoan
Adrian Pijoan is a new media artist based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sightings of Adrian have been reported at UFO festivals, Bigfoot research conferences, and in the dark recesses of the comments sections of low-view-count YouTube videos. Adrian explores the relationship between contemporary storytelling, landscape, the paranormal, and the internet.
13
Adrian received his MFA in art and ecology from the University of New Mexico in 2016 and his BA in botany from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2011. Adrian’s work has been shown at De:Formal; Silicon Valet; Daniela Elbahara in Mexico City, Mexico; The Sanitary Tortilla Factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico; The University of New Mexico Art Museum; at gallery weekend in Lima, Peru; Bikini Wax Gallery in Mexico City, Mexico; as part of the International Symposium of Electronic Arts in Vancouver, Canada; and in other traditional and nontraditional spaces.
14 Diego Medina, at the shore of your soul, over the edge of your bed, colored pencil on wood 12” ×18”
Through the use of fantasy illustration, natural pigments, earth materials, and visualized narratives, Diego retells New Mexican history highlighting its profoundly mystical importance. Holy Land is a show that draws upon historical narratives of what a Holy Land is, and how that is paralleled through the historical narratives and mythological lore of New Mexico. The show includes a combination of illustrations that place magic and myth alongside historical depiction as well as woven blanets that highlight some of the more intricate spiritual and cosmological profundity of New Mexico. This show also includes elements of written poetry as well as illustrations done on old maps of New Mexico that serve to imbue certain regional histories with the love and magic that are essential to experiencing the full mystical offerings of life.
By Diego Medina HOLY LAND
15
16
“So often the imagery of childlike wholesomeness and fairytale magic has precluded communities of color in its representation. My work seeks to transform those narratives and offer visual spaces of love and wonder to my ancestors by combining fantasy imagery with cultural narratives. Through my illustration practice i honor the love and magic that my ancestors experienced and carried in their hearts by depicting them in mystical situations, accompanied by time-traveling poetry and magical accomplices. ” -Diego Medina
Pages 16 - 17: Diego Medina, late night mischief, woven cotton, 30”x50”; Page 18: Diego Medina, Holy Land installation, 2022, Aziza Murray & Harwood Art Center, All Rights Reserved; Page 19: Diego Medina song is but smoke until it reaches the soul, colored pencil on wood 12”×16”
17
18
19
20
21
22 Diego Medina is a Piro-Manso-Tiwa artist, poet, historian, and educator whose family is one of the original Native families from the historic Mesquite district in downtown Las Cruces. As an artist, Diego’s work illustrates intricate metaphors that combine cultural knowledge and ancestral wisdom with fantasy and poetics. Diego also creates cartographical illustrations that combine ecological and cosmological knowledge with the process of prayer. For Diego, prayer is the finest art because it informs our conscious will, our expressions of love, connects us with sacred ancestral wisdom, and strengthens our spiritual kinship. In addition to creating art, Diego has a deep passion for archival research and borderlands Indigenous instagram.com/daydreamboyhistory.
diego medina
23
Pages 20 - 21: Diego Medina, the pretty girls of dog town” colored pencil on wood 12”×18”; Diego Medina, turn, turn, turn (your spirit’s migration through the invisible), colored pencil on wood 12”×18”; Pages 22 - 23: Diego Medina, through the canyon (detail), woven cotton, 30”x50”; Diego Medina, old friends, woven cotton, 30”x50”
MARCH 7 - APRIL 14
;
24
ENCOMPASS: A Multi-Generational Art Event
A collection of work seeking to imagine, to divine without assuming an outcome, rather — to perform as a meditation on the interconnectedness of self and surrounding.
The Artists of ArtStreet, Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless ArtStreet, an outreach program of Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless, presents: ArtStreet Unmasked, a collection of work that asks the question “what does it mean to be unmasked?”.
Divination of self: Robyn A. Frank
HArWood ArT CENTEr
(Top to Bottom): Robyn A. Frank, Dreaming, lucid and otherwise, acrylic paint on wood panel, May 2021; Toni Gentilli, Fruiting Bodies pigments made from cottonwood catkins with mold, graphite, ochre, and charcoal on cotton rag paper, 2021; Caitlin Carcerano, Tender, oil on canvas, 2021 XuanNhan, Lions Portal, acrylic, 2021
cALeNdArJANUARY18-FEBRUARY
2022 eXHIbITioN cALeNdAr
Bodies of Evidence: Toni Gentilli
APRIL 25 - JUNE 2
24
Featuring two indoor exhibitions, Splish Splash featuring Caitlin Carcerano & Charis Fleshner and re)conceive - works of reclamation an exhibition that deconstructs and reconstructs notions of social order featuring Lindsey Brenner, Jami Porter Lara, MK, Linda Montagnoli, Kei and Molly Textiles, Margarita Paz-Pedro & Robyn Tsinnanjinnie. Encompass is Harwood’s annual event that is both a reflection of and an offering to our community.
In Bodies of Evidence, artist Toni Gentilli renders visible the entanglement of human and environmental health, specifically the disproportionate impacts of autoimmunity on women and other chronic conditions linked to ecosystem degradation, and invokes healing through a compendium of naturally dyed textiles, weavings, paintings, sculptures, chlorophyll prints and botanical hydrosols.
HArWood ArT CENTEr
2022 eXHIbITioN
Solo Exhibition Winner of our 2021 SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico.
Diego will explore mythologies surrounding the theme of the Holy Land and create maps that transform New Mexico history into cartographic always fantasies that highlight some of the major paralleled between other historical lands and the sacred land of his home state of New Mexico.
Residency for Art & Social Justice
UFO Daydream: Adrian Pijoan
DECEMBER 3
Holy Land: Diego Medina
A UFO crashes in the desert, is retrieved, and brought to Harwood.
Harwood’s Residency for Art & Social Justice is dedicated to feature and support artists working at the intersections of creative expression and social justice. For the occasion of Harwood’s 30th Anniversary, we are offering and formally establishing our first official seven month residency program.
Harwood staff curate four exhibitions annually, ENCOMPASS: A Multi-Generational Art Event, SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico, and BRIDGE: Art & Social Justice. 12x12 is our annual fundraiser; all proceeds support our free community arts education, outreach and professional development.
(Top to Bottom): Diego Medina, all of this beauty was beloved into being, colored pencil on vintage map, 2021; Thomas Bowers, Crazy House, ink on paper, 2020; Adrian Pijoan, Still from Visions of Homeworld, single channel video, 5:10, 2020; MK, To see you again, archival inkjet print, lace & cotton blend table cloth, 2019
Harwood’s annual fundraising exhibitions featuring established, emerging and youth artists from New Mexico. This event includes 150 works that remain anonymous until sold – for the flat rates of $144 (12”x12”) or $36 (6”x6”) and an Artwork Preview before the original works go on sale. Prelude prices vary.
Harwood Art Center’s annual juried exhibition, professional development and endowed cash awards program honors emerging artists currently living and working in New Mexico.
12x12 Fundraising Exhibitions
Childlike Behavior: Thomas Bowers
AUGUST 15 - SEPTEMBER 15
SEPTEMBER 26 - NOVEMBER 3
SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico
JUNE 13 - JULY 28
HARWOOD ART CENTER’S GALLERIES PROGRAM
is dedicated to providing exhibition, audience expansion and professional development opportunities to artists working in any media and from diverse creative fields. Our galleries program is curated and managed by our Chief Programs Officer and Associate Directors of Opportunity and Engagement. Artists are invited to exhibit during three of our annual capstone events, Encompass, Residency for Art & Social Justice & 12x12, the rest of our exhibitions are awarded to individuals and groups through a competitive application process. Most of our applications are free to apply, any collected fees allocated to replenishing Harwood’s endowed cash awards for the program. Each featured exhibition is a supportive process, we work with the artists from concept development to installation in the galleries. For our 2021 exhibiting artists, we have developed a hybrid offering of both in person and virtual programming. For each exhibition we create comprehensive outreach and digital materials including exhibition catalogs, virtual galleries and artist talks to support the unique visions and voices of our gallery
26
Seededartists.in1991,
Harwood Art Center blooms the philosophy of our parent organization Escuela del Sol Montessori, with recognition that learning and expression offer the most resilient pathways to global citizenship, justice and peace. Harwood engages the arts as a catalyst for lifelong learning, cultural enrichment and social change, with programming for every age, background and income level. We believe that equitable access to the arts and opportunities for creative expression are integral to healthy individuals and thriving communities. In all of our work, we cultivate inclusive, reflective environments where everyone feels cared for. We nurture long-term, multi-faceted relationships with participants, building programs with and for diverse communities of Albuquerque. We integrate the arts with social justice, professional and economic growth, and education to cultivate a higher collective quality of life in New Mexico.
For 50 years, Escuela del Sol, an independent Montessori school, has nurtured selfdiscovery, social responsibility and passion for learning in our students. Each day Escuela supports students from ages 18 months to 13 years on their real-world quests to excel academically and to develop the skills they need for meaningful, happy and successful futures.
ABOUT HARWOOD ART CENTER & ESCUELA DEL SOL MONTESSORI
We are so thrilled to have established an official Photographer in Residence opportunity- a new ongoing residency at Harwood Art Center. This residency includes an annual honorarium and rent credit for a studio at Harwood. Aziza Murray, who was our inaugural Galleries & Exhibition Photographer, is now our Photographer in Residence.
HARWOOD ART CENTER’S PHOTOGRAPHER IN RESIDENCE
AZIZA MURRAY is a New Mexico based artist working primarily in photography. In 2015 she graduated with an MFA from the University of New Mexico where she also worked as a pictorial archiving fellow for the Center for Southwest Research. Since then, Aziza has worked in different capacities in the film industry in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, further piquing her interest in cinematography. Much of her work stems from a well of nostalgia for objects and moments, the materiality of photography, and her personal history—from experiencing tragic loss at an early age, to her multilayered experiences as a biracial person growing up in Washington, DC. She has shown her work in DC at Connersmith and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Albuquerque at the Harwood Art Center, the UNM Art Museum and the National Hispanic Cultural Center and, at MASS Gallery in Austin, TX. azizamurray@gmail.comazizamurray.com
27
We are able to present this residency and honorarium thanks to the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, New Mexico Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and the McCune Charitable Foundation.
WWW.HARWOODARTCENTER.ORG · 505.242.6367 · 1114 7th NW, ALBUQUERQUE, NM 87102