ART ISSUE
Rumi Vesselinova, Burnt Forest #3, digital photograph
RUMI VESSELINOVA For the past 20 years, Rumi Vesselinova has been creating landscape photographs that capture the radiance of the American Southwest, as well as its environmental challenges. “[T]he places closest to my heart have always been the American Southwest and my native Bulgaria. Different and distant as they are, they both speak to me in a profound, visceral voice,” she says. “They both are beautiful in their own ways, but photographing them is not about beauty, composition, or technical precision. It is about a level of closeness that does not allow for the separation of fascination and existential pain.” Overwrite, July 8–September 8, reception July 8, 5–7 pm Catenary Art Gallery, catenaryartgallery.com
Mark Yale Harris, Crush (monumental), bronze ed. of 8, 61 x 80 x 21"
ROGER HAYDEN JOHNSON Scenes bathed in early morning and late afternoon light are Colorado painter Roger Hayden Johnson’s muses. Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s oil paintings as a child, Johnson traveled Europe and lived in Paris and Munich before settling in the Southwest. Drawn to New Mexico’s similarities to Europe in language, architecture, and culture, he began creating richly colored paintings that capture a wide variety of architectural subjects, including old farmhouses, country chapels, European architecture, and indigenous buildings of the Southwest. Manitou Galleries, manitougalleries.com Roger Hayden Johnson, Truchas, oil, 30 x 30" 52
santafean.com
june/july 2016