MARCH 5 - APRIL 11, 2026
Harwood Art Center and Escuela del Sol Montessori are pleased to present Encompass, a unique multi-generational art event that takes place annually. Featuring multiple invitational exhibitions, open studios, free hands-on art activities, live music, food trucks, and activities for all ages. Encompass is both a reflection of and an offering to our community; this year’s theme is Rituals of Practice & Memory.
Rituals of Practice & Memory includes five commissioned installations by artists whose work illuminates identity, remedy, and truth.
Artists:
Yarelis Alvarez
Jen H Doolittle
Kelsey Kilcrease
Enchanted Matter
Denise Zubizarreta
“My art is a tool for exploring my identity. I display moments from my life using vibrant colors to emulate the lens of my younger self. Allowing me to converse with her, and illuminate aspects of myself I once concealed. A child of immigrant parents, my upbringing shapes how I interact with the world. My parents weren’t able to pursue their own passions, and this influences the subjects I paint related to my love for sport. I incorporate my own memories as well as portraits of people close to me. My passions as an artist and athlete are directly intertwined. I aim to share an essence of nostalgia by highlighting these important frames of my life.”
Born and raised in New Mexico, Yarelis Alvarez was always drawn to the arts. Inspired by her late grandfather, an artist himself, she dove into making her own work from a young age. Almost born in a bowling alley, Yarelis began to bowl leagues at the age of eight before eventually enveloping herself in the world of competitive bowling. Yarelis journeyed to New Orleans to pursue a Bachelor of Arts as well as an athletic career at Tulane University. Now, she uses both of her passions as fuel for creative expression.
Hello Father, Hello Daughter… began with a camera on a closet shelf. My interest in photography started with my Dad and his camera. I remember it coming down for family photos and vacations, and I loved the magic of seeing his images, which he turned into slides, projected on the wall. When he passed away, his camera became mine. Making photos was a way for me to stay connected to his memory. Writing him letters helped me make sense of how our relationship had changed.
The initial series of images for Hello Father, Hello Daughter… was created in a journal as part of my journey into grief, family relationships, childhood memories, and acceptance.
Seven years later, I’ve revisited these images as another step in my grief journey. Transferring them onto wood and adding gold leaf speaks to how grief never truly leaves. Instead, it’s become part of my story and an integral part of who I am.”
Jen H Doolittle is a photo-based artist who incorporates metal leaf and thread into her photographic work, creating layered pieces that explore identity, memory, and emotion. Having moved frequently throughout her childhood, Jen has lived in the United States, England, and Saudi Arabia. Photography became a way for her to connect with the people and places around her, a practice that continues to shape her artistic voice.
Her work has been included in two online group exhibitions and has been shown locally at Central New Mexico Community College, The Albuquerque Press Club, and 1415 Gallery in Albuquerque. Her pieces are held in private collections across the United States. In 2024, Jen was awarded the Marion & Kathryn Crissey Award as part of Harwood Art Center’s SURFACE: Emerging Artists of New Mexico. Jen is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico.
“These works honor the simplistic beauty of family, tradition, and nostalgia. The portrait depicts my husband’s grandparents, Jesus and Celia, in their youth. The reference photograph, taken at the floating gardens in Xochimilco, Mexico, carried an ethereal softness that I sought to preserve—a tender moment suspended between memory and presence. The work reflects their love, resilience, and steady devotion that shaped their family’s foundation.
Repetitive patterns sampled from vintage Tupperware, fabrics, and tablecloths weave throughout the composition. Fragmented and layered, these familiar domestic motifs echo the way memory returns— in flashes, textures, and feelings, rather than complete narratives. Organic silhouetted forms represent memories abstracted over time; though softened and altered, they remain recognizable enough to evoke a sense of familiarity. Together, these elements explore how nostalgia reshapes recollection, preserving emotion even as details fade.
The table recreates a simple Sunday breakfast—an intimate space where stories are shared and bonds are quietly reaffirmed. The chairs, place settings, and details are carefully selected to anchor the scene, as though it is frozen in time.
The place settings at each end represent our hosts, the matriarch and patriarch. Each providing nourishment, stability, and opportunity for their children and future generations. A third place setting is laid out for the viewer, extending the tradition of hospitality—a reminder that regardless of abundance or scarcity, sharing a meal is an act of love.”
Kelsey is a visual artist based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her primary focus is painting, with work ranging from digital illustrations to large scale murals. Her work is a celebration of the rich diversity of the Southwest, with a particular emphasis on family and identity. Through intentional use of color and an exploration of cultural motifs, she strives to capture the essence of this region and its unique aesthetic. With each brushstroke, she invites viewers to immerse themselves in a visual odyssey of the Southwest. Kelsey’s work is dedicated to portraying the vibrancy and beauty of this distinctive realm and all that it encompasses.
This triptych, La Familia Zubizarreta Santiago, captures the complex layers of love, loss, and legacy within my familial ties. Each figure—El Padre, Child[Less], and La Madre—represents not just individual relationships, but the collective weight of generational trauma and the intricacies of navigating identity within family dynamics shaped by colonial history.
Together, La Familia Zubizarreta Santiago reflects the complicated intersections of love and pain, resilience and trauma, that have shaped my family and myself. Each figure carries the weight of not only personal experiences, but the broader scars of colonialism and the generational trauma inherited from my ancestors. This work is an invitation to sit with those complexities, to witness the fractured yet resilient bonds of family, and to confront the legacies that continue to echo through us all.”
Denise Zubizarreta is an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work examines colonial power, identity, and the emotional afterlives of empire. Drawing from critical autoethnography and decolonial theory, her practice explores how systems of domination are internalized and reproduced through culture, belief, and everyday life.
Working across installation, sculpture, mixed media, and text, Zubizarreta creates immersive environments that engage themes of ancestry, religion, medicine, and institutional authority. Personal history functions as evidence rather than confession, connecting lived experience to broader structural analysis.
She is the creator of the framework Colonial Stockholm Syndrome, the author of Descansa en el Poder: A Sacred Guide to Ancestral Communion and Artful Resistance, and the founder of The Colonial Condition. Zubizarreta holds a B.F.A. in Fine Art and an M.A. in Arts Leadership and Cultural Management and is currently pursuing a PhD in Applied Social Justice.
This triptych, La Familia Zubizarreta Santiago, captures the complex layers of love, loss, and legacy within my familial ties. Each figure—El Padre, Child[Less], and La Madre—represents not just individual relationships, but the collective weight of generational trauma and the intricacies of navigating identity within family dynamics shaped by colonial history.
Together, La Familia Zubizarreta Santiago reflects the complicated intersections of love and pain, resilience and trauma, that have shaped my family and myself. Each figure carries the weight of not only personal experiences, but the broader scars of colonialism and the generational trauma inherited from my ancestors. This work is an invitation to sit with those complexities, to witness the fractured yet resilient bonds of family, and to confront the legacies that continue to echo through us all.”
Denise Zubizarreta is an interdisciplinary artist and writer whose work examines colonial power, identity, and the emotional afterlives of empire. Drawing from critical autoethnography and decolonial theory, her practice explores how systems of domination are internalized and reproduced through culture, belief, and everyday life.
Working across installation, sculpture, mixed media, and text, Zubizarreta creates immersive environments that engage themes
Illuminated Whispers is a solo exhibition exploring the intersection of light, symmetry, and meditation through black light-reactive mandala art. Each piece in this collection is created using vibrant, UV-reactive acrylics on wood, designed to come alive under black light—inviting viewers into an immersive experience where color, pattern, and perception shift in real time.
Rooted in the ancient tradition of mandalas and inspired by the geometric languages of Middle Eastern art, aboriginal design, and natural fractals, this body of work offers a new dimension to the meditative visual language of dot mandalas. As the patterns glow and pulse with light, they invite a deeper sense of stillness, reflection, and transcendence.
Sara Asadi, known professionally as Ereesa, is a Persian American artist with a Master’s in Interior Architecture and Design. Based in Albuquerque, NM, and currently a studio artist at Harwood Art Center, she creates intricate dot mandalas using acrylics on wood. Her work blends Middle Eastern geometry, aboriginal art, and natural symmetry, reflecting themes of heritage, diversity, and meditation.
Each piece is a personal ritual, offering calm and balance—feelings that often resonate with her audience. Her art has been featured in ART Santa Fe, Ghostwolf Gallery, Wolf Martinez Gallery, Harwood Art Center, and the NM State Fair, as well as in local markets and corporate events like Intel Corp and Rail Yards Market.
For Ereesa, art is both an expressive and meditative practice, inviting stillness and reflection through form, pattern, and repetition.
Sofie Hecht, Lynnette Haozous, Zahra Marwan, in collaboration with youth artists from Escuela del Sol Montessori
Harwood Art Center + Escuela del Sol Montessori are pleased to present 7th & Mountain: Exploring 100 Years of Learning Through History, Art, and Civic Engagement. This special project was made possible by a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching With Primary Sources Western Region, administered by Metropolitan State University of Denver. For the occasion, Harwood developed an arts-based framework incorporating:
History, Art + Civic Engagement // Harwood envisioned a holistic approach to arts integration and public engagement with Library of Congress Teaching With Primary Sources, to resource professional artists across three key program components:
(1) Original Artworks // create artworks inspired by the archival and primary sources we identify or uncover through our research into collections held by Escuela+Harwood, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, City of Albuquerque, State of New Mexico, and the Library of Congress.
(2) Educational Models // lead workshops to share their artworks/processes with young student and invite the students to create their own artworks/processes in response to archival and primary sources.
(3) Public Events // culminate with a public exhibition in Harwood’s Galleries featuring the works of the professional and student artists, alongside a selection of the primary Library of Congress and other archival materials.
Collaborating Artists // For 7th & Mountain, Harwood confirmed project participation and original commissions from three longtime local collaborating artists – Lynnette Haozous, Zahra Marwan, and Sofie Hecht:
Lynnette Haozous is an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe (Chiricahua Apache), and is part Diné, and Taos Pueblo. Haozous is a multimedium artist, currently based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She grew up living on all three of her tribal nations, learning a unique blend of Indigenous perspectives, intersectionalities, traditions, and experiences. She works in paintings, murals, installations, digital illustrations, screen-printing, and community art workshops.
Sofie Hecht is a documentary photographer born in Brooklyn, New York and based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work focuses on queer community, particularly collaborative portraiture, documenting drag performances, and returning home to photograph her own biological family. units in Albuquerque. Her photography has always been a path to build relationships and advocate for her communities. This means looking backwards as much as forward, using relational and empathetic storytelling to critically examine the historical narratives in which we find ourselves and build a new archive along the way.
Zahra Marwan works as a traditional artist with watercolor and ink, creating artwork that reflects her cultural roots in Kuwait as well as her life now in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She loves poetry and independent cinema and how quiet and mysterious the night is. She is deeply fond of the sea. Her debut picture book, Where Butterflies Fill the Sky, was published by Bloomsbury Books and named one of the New York Times / New York Public Library’s 10 Best Illustrated Books as well as NPR’s Best Books of 2022.
The artworks that engage Escuela del Sol Montessori students in this exhibition were supported by Escuela Art Studio Guide, Christy Cook. For over 10 years, Christy has coordinated exhibitions in collaboration with Harwood Art Center that showcase the artistic talents of Escuela students, leading them through the exhibition process to create their final vision. In 2026, this work expanded to include collaboration with working artists as part of a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant Escuela + Harwood received. Harwood Artists Lynnette Haozous, Zarha Marwan, and Sofie Hecht engaged archival records and photographs to inspire their own artworks; through workshops, they shared this process with Escuela students who created their own works in response. Christy supported the artists and students in this collaborative work.
Christiana is an artist, educator, and performing musician with a Masters in Art Education. She’s been writing songs since the age of five, and has been competitively engaged in drawing since the age of 6–in an attempt to keep pace with her beloved twin brother. Since moving to New Mexico in 2008, Christiana has worked as an educator with many community focussed organizations including: Americorps, the ABQ BioPark, LifeSongs, and Circo Latino. For the past ten years she has taught art at Escuela del Sol Montessori and worked with the Harwood Art Center to showcase student work in gallery and installation formats. Christy performs with ABBAquerque (Albuquerque’s premier ABBA cover band) and teaches Songwriting at the University of New Mexico.
This mural was created by Eamon Quigley and Alina Pozas in collaboration with students at Garfield, Hayes, and Van Buren Middle School. As part of our Public Art & Community Practice program, it will be embedded into our inaugural public artwork at Phil Chacon Park this summer. Monument to Care honors those who provide care for their community in the form of healing, teaching, caretaking, mentoring, and nurturing the well being of individuals, ecosystems and the common good.
Harwood’s Public Art & Community Practice Program: From 2025 - 2030, Harwood Art Center will co-create 4 significant public artworks for Phil Chacon Park in partnership with collaborating organizations and participants. The Public Art & Community Practice Program celebrates the growth and vitality of communities across Albuquerque and the surrounding Trumbull Village Neighborhood. The artworks at Phil Chacon Park will include contributions from our team of professional Teaching Artists, local residents, students at Van Buren, Garfield and Hayes Middle School, and youth artists hired through Harwood’s paid Apprenticeship program.
AllTogether is an exhibition of work made by Harwood Art Center’s extended community reflecting our organization’s mission to nurture a passion for lifelong learning, creative expression and engaged citizenship.
Participating Artists:
Jen DePaolo
Amy Mann
Lea Anderson
Deb Wozniak
Sophie Rubeo
Len Follick
Lindsay Brenner
Sharmayne Arviso
Sarah Wright
Shawn Turung
Rachel Bordeleau
M. Certo
Sandra Munoz-Puga
Susan Roden
MB Ramos
Ken Gingerich
Alina Pozas
Sophia Herrera
Sarah Raupagh
Shereen Zangeneh
By Jess Merritt
Jess Merritt is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses on exploring and mapping the narrative of how identity changes as it passes through contemporary southwestern landscapes and liminal spaces, balancing the juxtaposition between landscapes/cityscapes, dream states/physical locations, and hope/loss.
Jess’ current media of choice are analog photography, watercolor paintings, and 3-dimensional paper forms and installations created using both mediums. She combines her love of photography with urban exploration and backcountry solo hiking, transporting her camera with her as she explores badlands, canyons, and man-made concrete labyrinths. The sights documented on her wanderings frequently reoccur as elements of her paintings, mobiles, paper sculptures and installations, all of which meet at the intersection between abstraction and surrealism.
By Denise Weaver Ross
Denise Weaver Ross is a multi-disciplinary artist, illustrator, muralist, and poet whose work draws on mythology, nature, history, and cultural symbolism. Through intricate layering, she transforms diverse imagery into unified visual narratives. Her major series—House of Cards, Legendary Creatures, Art of the I Ching, and Postcards to America—reimagine familiar forms to uncover hidden stories and illuminate contemporary issues.
Based in Albuquerque since 1996, Denise has created eight murals across the city, with a ninth currently in progress, and worked recently with middle school students in Harwood Art Center’s Youth Mural Program. Her work has appeared in national juried exhibitions, and she was selected to help design a sculpture for Albuquerque’s International District Park as part of the 2026 Route 66 Centennial. She holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is the author of five books combining her art and poetry.
is dedicated to providing exhibition, audience expansion and professional development opportunities to artists working in any media and from diverse creative fields. Our gallery 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 artists.
Seeded in 1991, 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.
We are so thrilled to have an official Harwood Photographer for our galleries program this year! We are able to present the SURFACE Emerging Artists of NM Award and Microgrant of $250 to each of this year’s artists thanks to the Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, New Mexico Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and the McCune Foundation.
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.com azizamurray@gmail.com
Many thanks to our genrous supporting partners: Albuquerque Art Business Association / ARTScrawl, Albuquerque Community Foundation, Downtown Neighborhood Association, McCune Charitable Foundation, New Mexico Arts and National Endowment for the Arts, City of Albuquerque Urban Enhancement Trust Fund, US Bank, and A Good Sign. Special thanks to Nusenda Foundation and Sandia Foundation for support of our Creative Roots program and to Fay Abrams and to Debi & Clint Dodge for support of our exhibiting and commission artists. As well as to Marion & Kathryn Crissey and Reggie Gammon for establishing our endowed awards for this program, and to Meghan Ferguson Mráz and Valerie Roybal for their unwavering support and constant inspiration – and for whom we named new annual awards in 2019. SURFACE would not be possible without our extraordinary local collaborators.