Image: EVOKE Contemporary, Santa Fe
Evoke Contemporary’s biweekly ‘Looking & Seeing’ series turns to the theme of ‘Magic’ in an essay by arts writer and curator John O’Hern. The latest contemplation examines how artists transform ordinary and natural phenomena into experiences of mystery, wonder and heightened attention, focusing on works by Michael Scott, Irene Hardwicke Olivieri and David T. Alexander.
The essay begins with the tension between scientific explanation and the sense of enchantment that can accompany everyday experience. O’Hern invokes W. B. Yeats’s description of “magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper” before considering how light, landscape, weather and living forms can exceed a purely technical account. He connects that idea to northern New Mexico, where sunsets, sage, chamisa and geological strata provide recurring subjects for artistic attention.
Scott’s ‘Moon Over Fire Hole’, an oil painting on panel measuring 22.5 by 15 inches, is discussed in relation to the changing behavior of human vision in low light. O’Hern refers to the Purkinje effect, in which the eye’s peak luminance sensitivity shifts toward the blue-green portion of the spectrum as illumination decreases, and identifies the phenomenon as a recurring element in Scott’s paintings. Scott was born in the Midwest and lives and works in Santa Fe, according to his artist profile at Evoke Contemporary.
The essay also considers Scott’s ‘Poem From the Fire #9’, an oil painting on paper mounted on panel measuring 20.5 by 16 inches. Scott describes sketching and writing beside a pond at his vacation home in Maine, where a four-colored flame became, in his imagination, “a white wolf stepping forward from my memory and imagination.” The image, he writes, carried the mystery of nature’s splendor and asked him to keep looking.
Olivieri’s ‘Afternoon with the Badgers’, an oil painting on clay board measuring 24 by 30 inches, developed from the artist’s observation of a badger den discovered with her husband. A trail camera recorded the animals’ movements, while the painting links the human figure, the Rio Grande and the badgers’ presence. Olivieri’s statement that she begins painting when she wants to see something frames the work as an act of discovery. Her broader practice, according to Evoke Contemporary, explores subterranean aspects of life, including secrets, obsessions, existence and ephemerality.
The third work, Alexander’s ‘Almost a Stack, Erosion Wins Again’, is an acrylic painting on canvas measuring 48 by 18 inches. Born in British Columbia, Alexander became attached to the desert landscape of northern New Mexico and focuses on the impermanence of its terrain. O’Hern discusses the Rio Grande Gorge and the region’s volcanic and tectonic formations, while Alexander describes desert rain washing pigment across the soil through gravity. Alexander is identified by Evoke Contemporary as an award-winning Canadian painter known for landscapes and water-reflection imagery.
O’Hern has written for International Artist Publishing’s magazines for nearly two decades and previously worked for 35 years in museum management and curation, including as executive director and curator of the Arnot Art Museum. ‘Looking & Seeing’ is presented as a recurring, gallery-linked contemplation of individual artworks and themes associated with Evoke Contemporary’s artists.
