CONTACT: Diane Kell, Communications and Marketing Coordinator, LewAllen Galleries, 129 West Palace Avenue, Santa Fe NM 87501, ph: (505) 988-8997, email: [email protected]

This mid-winter exhibition of works on paper includes lithographs, serigraphs, monotypes, photography-based mixed media, and paintings and drawings in oil, acrylic, watercolor and other media on paper by gallery artists such as Jean Arnold, Sharon Booma, Judy Chicago, Janet Fish, Audrey Flack, Emily Mason, Beverly McIver, Ed Mieczkowski, Daniel Morper, Forrest Moses, Meridel Rubenstein, Jeanette Pasin Sloan, and Jaune Quick-To-See Smith – plus important works on paper by Dan Christensen (1942-2007), Richard Estes (1932- ), Luis Jimenez (1940-2006), Alex Katz (1927- ), and Andy Warhol (1928-87).

An entire, small room within the exhibition is devoted to drawings by long-time gallery artist, Virgil Grotfeldt (1948-2009), who sadly succumbed to cancer earlier this week at his home in Houston.

Grotfeldt was known for his intricate paintings and drawings of primordial life forms that are indistinguishably animal or vegetable. These fantastic biomorphic shapes appear to have been captured in a moment of active growth – branching, leafing, nesting, fanning, whirling, pulsing, waving, morphing from one life form to another.

He executed works in a variety of media and was known especially for his experiments with unusual materials such as coal and metal dust suspended in an aqueous acrylic medium. Often he incorporated found documents such as 19th century nautical charts and fragments of handwriting as the substrate for his drawings and paintings.

Grotfeldt once said: “My real interest is in spiritual and mystical traditions. It is through investigation of these traditions that I began to tap my subconscious as a resource. Often I raise questions in my work for which I have no answers. This manner of working has taken me further away from the more formal issue of art making which tends to lead to art for art’s sake.”

Born in Illinois, he graduated with a BS in Art Education from Eastern Illinois University and later earned his MFA at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He held teaching positions at schools in Illinois and Texas and also worked in Europe and New York before permanently relocating to Houston, in 1977. His work has been shown nationally and internationally, in such places as Mexico, Europe, China and Japan. He is also in the permanent collections of many prestigious museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; El Paso Museum, El Paso; and the Chengdu Museum, China.

To view the entire “Hand to Paper” exhibition, please visit our Web site:

http://www.lewallencontemporary.com/exhibit.php