Santa Fe, NM - Out of an initial chaos of brushstrokes, Native American artist Darren Vigil Gray searches for and cherishes the muse that will inspire another of his vividly energetic and distinctively original oiil and acrylic paintings and monotypes. The most recent - including landscapes, dreamscapes and portraits - will be shown in his third solo exhibition at LewAllen Contemporary in downtown Santa Fe from August 3 through August 27.
Vigil Gray attributes the "wild abandonment, freewheeling nature and spontaneous activity" of his paintings to the influence of his Jicarilla and Kiowa Apache ancestors. His figure-filled dreamscapes and portraits are edgy and contemporary while packed with mythic elements that spring as much from his mind as ancient stories. His landscapes depict the Jicarilla Apache homelands near Abiquiu as a source os vibrant energy.
Once deemed "the Golden Boy of the third generation" of Native American modernists (Lucy Lippard, quoting a 1995 review by Jo Basiste) Darren Vigil Gray continues to receive acclaim for his striking alchemy of ancient myth and modernist vision. He has been called one of the "most innovative and influential Living Native American artists" by director Jonathan Baskin of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, which in 2002 honored him with an unusual distinction for an artist in mid-career, a twenty-year solo retrospective that filled every gallery in the Museum and broke all previous attendance records.
In the catalogue for the Wheelwright retrospective, esteemed critic Lucy Lippard wrote approvingly: "For all his profound bonds to nature, Apache culture, and to the northern New Mexico landscape, (Vigil) Gray has found his true place in the act of painting, in brushstrokes informed by dreams and visions that transcend the personal and the local." Critic and art historian Jan Adlmann, formerly an assistant director at the Guggenheim in New York, has described him as one of the few Native artists who have "leapt beyond their roots to create strikingly original work that stands up in any venue."
Vigil Gray was raised on the Jicarilla Apache reservation in Northern New Mexico. He left the reservation at age 15 to attend the Institue of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe and was accepted into the Annual Indian Market in Santa Fe the year following his 1977 graduation. His work began appearing in prestigious museums, including the Wheelwright, the Smithsonian Institution, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, the Denver Art Museum, the Gilcrease Art Museum in Tulsa, and the Museum of the American West in Idaho.
LewAllen Contemporary is open 9:30 - 5:30 Monday through Thursday, 9:30-6:30 Friday and Saturday, and 11:00 - 5:00 Sunday. Cherishing the Muse will begin Friday, August 3, and continue through Monday, August 27. An artist's reception for the exhibition will be held at the start of Indian Market Weekend, on Friday, August 17. For further information please contact Diane Kell at (505) 988-8997 or [email protected].
