Arts Council welcomes The Border Artists in ‘Blue Skies’ show

The Doña Ana Arts Council (DAAC) will showcase The Border Artists in “Blue Skies,” Dec. 3-29 at the DAAC Arts and Cultural Center, 250 W. Amador Ave.

Patrons will see art representing a diversity of materials, narratives, perspectives and experiences reaching beyond the challenges of 2020.

The Border Artists organization was formed in the late 1980s to increase visibility and recognition for artists in southern New Mexico. Finding much success, the group continued to add members with diverse backgrounds and organized as a nonprofit association in 1995. All members are residents of New Mexico and El Paso, and they exhibit locally and nationally in juried shows.

Photographers Emmitt Booher, Storm Sermay and David Sorenson are all well known in the region. Booher was the first artist selected for the artist-in-residence for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument (OMDPNM) in 2016. In 2013, Sorenson was artist-in-residence at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery in Queensland, Australia in conjunction with an international exchange exhibition between galleries in Las Cruces and Queensland. Sermay's work has been shown in the El Paso International Airport and she is known for her work in black and white.

The exhibition will also feature the work of painters Tauna Cole, Sherry Doil-Carter, Cassandra Lockwood, Rosemary Mcloughlin, Jo-an Smith, Zoe Spiliotis, Nolan Winkler and Jean Wilkey, along with sculptors Suzanne Kane and Andres Nagem, and clay artist Terry Wolfe, mixed-media artists Jeanne Rundell and Linda Elkins along with jewelry artist Margaret Berrier.

Cole, a local artist and professor at NMSU, often uses metaphors and symbolism to reflect self, identity and family. Doil-Carter, an art teacher at Alma d'arte Charter High School, uses collage, printmaking, sculpture, mixed media and painting to create her work. Lockwood was also selected for OMDPNM residence for May 2018.

After recent vision loss, Mcloughlin is back creating vibrant paintings and exhibiting again. “With my recent vision loss, I am now on a new journey,” Mcloughlin said. “I am hopeful that in this new way of seeing it will be a journey of discovery and of painting whatever life may inspire.”

After her recent retrospective show in the gallery, Smith will show more work inspired by the region’s rich colors, textures and shapes. El Paso artist and El Paso Community College Art Professor Spiliotis has created public artworks and murals in New Mexico, Texas and Pennsylvania. Her work is based on mathematical principles, and she explores color relationships and patterns.

“I am a painter. I am not a mathematician, yet my intuition and aesthetic sense have led me to explore patterns and shapes that have an underlying mathematical logic,” Spiliotis said.

Winkler’s work can be found in many collections, including the Governor’s Collection in the Santa Fe Roundhouse, the collections of internationally known artists Sol and Carolyn LeWitt, The Four Seasons Hotels and Spas, Hilton Hotels and many more throughout the world. She has won numerous artist-in-resident fellowships across the county and shows work at the Rio Bravo Fine Art Gallery in Truth or Consequences. Wilkey, a New Mexico State University graduate and gallery owner, combines objects and elements from nature in ways you might not normally expect.

Janice Cook, a full-time potter for 50 years, works in porcelain, enjoying the choreography of her shapes and the colors of the slips and stains she uses to decorate. Amanda Jaffe also works with porcelain and draws inspiration from the landscape and culture of New Mexico and Montana. Her relief porcelain wall tiles are frequently abstract with landscape references and contain ceramic objects, including boats, flowers and leaves. Suzanne Kane is inspired by unusual seeds and structural plants that endure and survive in the Southwest. Her work often reflects resilience, persistence, toughness, durability, tenacity and adaptability of nature. Andres Nagem’s most prominent local work is the “Refuge” sculpture installed in 1995 in Lions Park, but he also produced a series of ceramic tile murals at Court Youth Center. Clay artist Terry Wolfe will also participate in the show.

Linda Elkins, one of the group’s mixed media artists, is guided by an intuitive creation process and her work includes handmade books and journals. Jeanne Rundell began painting 12 years ago, creating wild, brightly colored teapots known as Dysfunctional Teapots. Today, she is known for her wildly colorful contemporary paintings of farm equipment.

Margaret Berrier rounds out the group exhibition with jewelry. She became fascinated by archaeology and nature and has studied the ancient cultures of Central America and the Southwest for almost 25 years. She utilizes her fascination with these cultures and nature to create pieces that have “layers” to the images she is incorporating.

The DAAC Arts and Cultural Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. the second Saturday of every month, including Dec. 11.

Call 575-523-6403. Visit www.daarts.org.