Chase Stafford, Alexandra Standing Before the Terrace, 2016, Single channeled projection, 48" x 48"
The Santa Fe Reporter
September 30, 2016
Maria Egolf-Romero
The Santa Fe Art Project is a multi-faceted, eight-week-long exhibition and collaborative effort between emerging and established local artists and curators split into two-week sections. Part 11, curated by David Richard Gallery owner David Eichholtz, opens Friday. "I am really struck with the creativity and the innovation on a couple of levels," Eichholtz tells SFR. "One is the conceptual level, just the thoLI"ghtfulness that goes into the work. But the other thing, too, is the great use of all sorts of materials." Take Chris Collins, for example. "He finds these metal pieces out in the desert," Eichholtz says, "and he cleans them up and transforms them by adding copper and gold and silver foil to one surface or one aspect of the surface." Similarly, Santa Fe University of Art & Design student Chase Stafford creates light art that calls to mind the mood-capturing colorful installation rooms by artist James Turrell. Though Stafford's pieces aren't as large as Turrell's, they do emote amber melancholy or cerulean calm in their illuminations. According to Eichholtz, "He is using what looks like a light, but it's really a video of a light." One of themore established artists in the exhibit, Anne Farrell, has lived in Santa Fe for more than 30 years and screens her newest film, Processed Nature. "It's a five-minute piece presented on a monitor and it's kind of psychedelic and a little trippy," Eichholtz tells SFR. "A combination of nature and sort of nature-derived abstractions." Farrell mashes natural images with bold neon colors for images that scream digital despite their analog subject matter; imagine your screen saver circa 1998. Still, Part II of the Santa Fe Art Project offers a peek into the future by placing its focus on boundary-pushing mediums that utilize new-school aesthetics and creation. "Creativity, innovation and art-making have been part of Santa Fe's DNA forever," Eichholtz says. "This is a great way to see that continuum in this current/next generation." (Maria Egolf-Romero)