Eye to I: Self Portraits by Women Artists

February 10 - March 24, 2007

presented in conjunction with the Women and Creativity series organized by the National Hispanic Cultural Center

516 Central Avenue SW Downtown Albuquerque www.516arts.org

INTRODUCTION T

he exhibition EYE TO I brings together women artists from

around the country to take a fresh look at issues of femininity and identity through the lens of self-portraiture, a subject artists have been revisiting throughout the history of art. These artists explore self-representation through diverse approaches in photography, painting, mixed media and sculpture. They address the subject of the self through ritual, masquerade, humor, and diverse narratives from the mundane to the fantastical.

Whether depicting their own image literally or metaphorically, these artists all examine questions of self in uniquely personal ways. The self is seen here as a reflector, revealed both headon and from unexpected angles, blurring the lines between the personal and the political, and inner and outer reality.

EYE TO I celebrates strength, vulnerability and inventiveness within the context of ever-present psychological and cultural restraints. The work assembled here questions our assumptions and seeks out the sources of creativity.

Suzanne Sbarge, Curator

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CHIX PICS

E

by Kathleen Whitney

artists, whose work addresses self and identity, each staking out

very image in this exhibition improvises on the idea of self

through self-portraiture. EYE TO I brings together ten women a territory that is open to any possibility, any permutation. Within this arena, they create a concept of self that is fluid, shifting and shape changing. Each artist makes a transitory identity for herself using various contrivances: distortion, dress-up and the creation of a twin persona. They use a multitude of processes to highlight or reconfigure some aspect of the self using autobiography, masquerade, transformation and redefinition. The eye and I of their work, its heart's blood and brain's thought, develop from a number of eccentric methodologies that makes the art of visual fiction synonymous with self-examination. Their richly complex photographs, paintings and objects are salvaged from hazardous interior currents of parody, desire and intuition.

All ten artists produce the signage necessary for identifying themselves, but these signs are expressed in mirror writing and are undecipherable. The Eternal Feminine has always been portrayed as inscrutable; maybe their play with identity and clichĂŠ is uniquely female, a girl thing?

It has long been considered that vanity is solely a female characteristic, a woman's sin committed with a mirror. There was no self-portraiture until the mirror was invented, and no one has stopped looking in it since. There are many variations on the mirror; any reflective surface will do well. There is so much to check out, so much to control – hair, lips, the proper drape of

There was no self-portraiture until the mirror was invented, and no one has stopped looking in it since.

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skirt or jacket. Better still is the snapshot’s paper mirror; it makes

establish in the real time of their thoughts. This is not rewriting; it

an image bearing less sin/shame than the other mirror. Although

is inventing and formulating a structure in which to be an artist,

the snapshot creates more questions than the mirror, everyone

to make something that is without reference to daily life. These

looks at snapshots of themselves. The questions everyone asks

artists are exploring the idea of a self that exists within its own

about a photograph of oneself are: Do I really look like that? Is

reality, a reality in which they tweak, manipulate and reinvent

that really ME? There is a kind of greed in that glance; these are

the meaning of the their own images. In the process, they find

my things, this is my face, I AM the person I see because I made

something beyond the clichĂŠ questions the mirror is asked: Am I

that appearance.

good-looking? Should I cut my hair? Does this look good on me?

They are looking for something deeper and more psychological.

Powerful images of ourselves saturate our culture. Seeing these

The mirror is a partner in their play of meanings. After all, every

images has a huge impact on viewers, causing them to readjust

image is artificial, unrelated to reality, just a picture. The mirror's

the interior image landscape. The visual can be more intense

reversed reflection is their starting point, not the endgame.

than the written word in its immediacy; it bypasses the analytical

For these self-portraitists, the glassy reflection is a partner in a

part of the brain and appeals directly to the senses. The body

potentially endless drama.

is powerfully iconic, so tangibly present in every expression of itself that it erases the barrier between physical nature and the

Images of people are more powerful than any other kind;

unreal phantasm of the body in its painted, photographed or

they are intensely successful and seductive. They bypass the

digitized form. Visual images of any kind provide a culture with

abstraction and suspension of disbelief that characterizes much

likenesses that mirror its dilemmas. These images bear juice,

of how we currently live in our bodies and minds. After all, bodies

heat and potency because of the much-loved fantasy of the

are always completely identifiable and possessed in identical form

dream becoming the reality and vice versa. Shifts in reality are

by everyone in the world. Every image in this exhibition could

the stuff of children's fairytales; adults live by the same thoughts

be you, your mirror and your fantasy. These images breathe the

of miraculous change in their lives or persona. There is an ugly

identity of the women who made them but generously and

duckling inside everyone waiting for the big change.

democratically share their maker's fantasies.

All of the artists in EYE TO I work with the dissonances between mirrors, photographs and abstract notions of the self. They create themselves independently, in control of a reality frame they

There is an ugly duckling inside everyone waiting for the big change.

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Kathleen Whitney has written catalogs and essays nationally and internationally. She is currently a contributing editor at Sculpture Magazine, and a sculptor living in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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Susan Byrnes Dayton, Ohio

“The brassiere is a rite of passage. It can be seductive, constructive, protective or obstructive. A woman rarely leaves home without it; for many, it is an essential layer of skin. Support System, a rusty bodice at once warrior’s breastplate and matronly, or voluptuous undergarment is a representation as powerful in its absence as in its presence.”

S

usan Byrnes’s work has an extraordinary presence. It is visceral, meaty,

expressive and exhibits the evidence of her touch. Its autobiographical nature is inscribed in the work through her careful handwork as well as her changing, developing thoughts. She merges intellect with emotion thus adding a strong element of self to her otherwise conceptual work. This combination produces objects that are deeply evocative, sensual and innovative. Susan Byrnes is an artist, art administrator and art educator. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography from Syracuse University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Eastern Michigan University. She exhibits her sculpture, installations and performance work across the United States. She also produces arts-based broadcasts for college radio at the University of Dayton. She serves as director of ArtStreet, a residential arts facility at the University of Dayton.

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Support System cast iron, 14 x 16 x 14 inches, 2003

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Juliana Coles Albuquerque, New Mexico

“When I create, I am fast and furious, exploding across the page like a tornado hits a brick wall. I do not know if it will work out. I do not know what story I will summon from the darkness of my being. For me, self portraiture is a way of life –– an attempt to creatively express my mystery.

My visual journals are a testament to this desire, and my life, so to speak, has become an open book.”

J

ulianna Coles refers to what she does as “extreme portraiture.” Her

complete investment in her work, her total identification with it as a projected internal/external element of herself, similar to an arm or a leg or a heart, is evident in every page of her journals. She has embarked upon an extraordinary task, a life long project begun at the age of 11, that encompasses every aspect of her life. Her work is not filtered through the established means used by many artists. It is highly original, with volcanic emotions informing every page.

Juliana Coles recieved her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. She received the Wildine Fund Grant for Artists for her Expressive Visual Journals workshop at ArtStreet in 2000. In 2002, she received an award from the Madonna Fund for Artists. Her visual journals are featured in Making Journals By Hand by Jason Thompson and appear in eight other books on the subject. Coles travels the world teaching experiential workshops in Expressive Visual Journaling.

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Crow Brought the Message (detail) from mixed media artist’s book, 10 x 8 inches, 2006

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Lalla Essaydi New York, New York

“The text in these images is partly autobiographical. In it, I speak of my thoughts and experiences directly, both as a woman caught somewhere between past and present, as well as between East and West, and also as an artist, exploring the language in which to ‘speak’ from this uncertain space. In photographing women inscribed with henna, I emphasize their decorative role, but subvert the silence of confinement.”

L

alla Essaydi was born in Morocco and later left the country. The sexual

politics of Islam, in particular the confinement of women’s lives in domestic spaces, are the conceptual basis of her series titled Converging Territories. In these images, Essaydi sees herself simultaneously as a member of this culture and as a westerner distanced from it. In her lush color photographs, women wear garments that erase, confine and repress identity. Inscribed on them like tattoos or billboards are endless hennaed loops of calligraphy. In Islam calligraphy is a sacred form, the province of men, while henna is typically used by women as a body decoration. The combination of the two is dangerous, subversive and even revolutionary. Essaydi studied painting at L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Paris, France.

She received both her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

She has exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States and internationally in Holland and Syria. Essaydi’s work is in many collections and has been extensively reviewed in many major art magazines. Her work is represented

by Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York, Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston and Schneider Gallery in Chicago.

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Converging Territories #10 C-print mounted on aluminum 30 x 40 inches, 2004

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Alexandria Levin Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“I paint still lifes depicted as iconographic portraiture. The subjects are mostly representations of living things, although not always in their assumed natural state. This work focuses on the qualities of poignancy, depth and stillness. These images are pictorial narratives, unspoken scenes — simple allegories starring anthropomorphic characters who speak silently to me. I translate their voices into paint.”

S

tuffed animals labor in that brief childhood space of consciousness that

still offers the ability to invent a reality. Alexandria Levin’s portraits of animals are heartbreaking in their abject humility. During the passage from childhood these small, artificial beings have experienced the intense adoration that can only be given by young children. They have been held and twisted, talked to and thrown on the ground. This is the source of their abjection and their raison d’etre. Levin’s portraits concern love, abandonment and lines between innocence and adulthood. Levin currently lives in Philadelphia and has recently written two books on the arts and creativity. She has exhibited her oil paintings in galleries, museums and cultural centers across the country, including in nine solo exhibitions. Her paintings are in private collections from Boston to Japan and in the Capitol Art Collection in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has lectured on her work in the San Francisco Bay Area, Philadelphia and Tokyo and has received grants from the California Arts Council and Massachusetts Arts Lottery Council.

She attended San Francisco Art Institute where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors in 1989. In New Mexico, she studied figure drawing with noted Albuquerque portrait artist Leo Neufeld.

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Smile in Pink oil on masonite panel, 10 x 6 inches, 2001

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Holly Lynton Weehawken, New Jersey

“People unabashedly state that I must be 12, or 16, or at a stretch, perhaps 22, even when their assumption defies logic, and they go to great lengths to share their observation. I am particularly drawn to these moments when assumption, perception and presentation collide to create fantasy. In my series of self-portraits titled Mean Ceiling, I re-enacted childhood games and photographed my face close-up, without any make up, but covered with elements such as snow, sand or leaves.”

I

n this series of autobiographical works, Holly Lynton is her subject matter in a

context created entirely by her. Within certain parameters she controls the scene and like a performance artist, photographs herself within the situation or setting she has created. The world has handed her the material and she has used it to wring out fantastical, dreamlike images of youth, those pure experiential joys of childhood — snow, berries, grass and slugs. The photographs are intensely attractive, confusing the ideal of reality with their theatrical construction. There are no clues that let the viewer into this artifice, the tampered-with reality.

Seductive as they are, the photos radiate a tangible oddness, something in them is off, just under the radar. Lynton lives and works in the New York City area. She has shown in several galleries and museums in New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Miami, and in London, England. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Bard College and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. Holly Lynton’s work is held in numerous private and public collections and has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Village Voice. Her work is represented by Jen Bekman Gallery in New York City.

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September from Mean Ceiling series C-print, 17 x 23 inches, 2004

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Jennifer Nehrbass Albuquerque, New Mexico

“The relationships of women to themselves and their environment fuel the narratives within my paintings and are formed from the binary oppositions between the images. There is nature/culture, stationary/movement and fetishism/indifference…I dismantle the roles and stereotypes of beauty and femininity. Specifically, I focus on the anxiety created when there is a divide between what women own and who they are. I examine the psychology that leads women to go to extremes to maintain beauty and style.”

J

ennifer Nehrbass’s paintings are beautiful, delicate and mysterious, all

attributes thought to be singularly feminine in nature. In accordance with these characteristics, her paintings are made with an extremely light touch. The settings in her paintings are woozily atmospheric with a hard focus on the subjects. Each image presents a rosy allegory, translucent and receptive enough to allow the observer to make his or her own fantasy about its meaning. This generosity towards the viewer is contradictory: the harmonious colors and beautiful compositions give way to the realization that there is a snake in this numinous paradise. These images are sharply psychological, none of them providing a safe or comfortable arena. They take the myths of femininity and turn them inside out. The imaginative construct in which her work exists goes beyond realism.

The point of these carefully contrived paintings is to demonstrate the forces and situations that define women. Nehrbass has her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of New Mexico. She has received several grants and awards, and her work has been exhibited in New Mexico, Alabama, California, New York, and Venice, Italy. Her work is represented by Klaudia Marr Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Arena Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.

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Postulating Jane oil on canvas, 56 x 42 inches, 2007

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Abby Robinson New York, New York

“AutoWorks is a series that already covers a 30-year period and is an ongoing project. Begun when I was a graduate student, this body of work will continue until I am too old and feeble to hit the shutter. Though the series certainly has diaristic elements, what I am doing is exploring the interactions between photographer – camera – photographer. The photographer (in front and in back of the lens concurrently) gets to be director, actor, observer, subject and/or prop, and the camera functions as companion and accomplice.”

A

bby Robinson’s series of small self portraits, AutoWorks, are taken from

unusual angles; in many images Robinson herself is barely present except for a telltale hand or foot. They show part of her – getting a massage, her legs in the bath tub, her draped lower body at the gynecologist, her shadow at Versailles.

Hers is a striptease in which she reveals small chunks of her life in images that are humorous and at the same time, deadly serious. Though her semipresence seems a form of erasure-in-progress, it actually places her front and center –– present by virtue of her absence. These images expose the artifice of photography by making her presence in the picture-making process so tangible.

Robinson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Barnard College and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from Pratt Institute. She teaches at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She has written six books, most recently New Vietnamese Photography (2000). Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and is in many collections including the Whitney Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

Her exhibitions have been reviewed in major publications including ArtForum, ArtNews and the New York Times. She has received numerous grants, including a Fulbright Fellowship to photograph in Sri Lanka and India in 1999.

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AutoWorks (details) silver prints, 3 x 4 inches each, ongoing

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Adrienne Salinger Albuquerque, New Mexico

“Self-help books warrant their own category on the New York Times Bestseller lists. We hope to enliven our personalities, mend our childhoods, lengthen our lives, restore our bodies, and make more friends. We define ourselves by our flaws. I ask random individuals to lend me their self-help books… Collectively, the images play off each other and offer glimpses into the Western world’s fascination with the ‘self-improvement industry’ and its philosophically-rooted tenets.”

T

he desire to improve oneself has become a form of socially acceptable fantasy.

The lure of self improvement lies in its promise of easy transformation; everyone can use an overhaul, either mental or physical. The remodeling and enrichment of self is achieved through diet, changes in posture or thought. Salinger notes that people seem vaguely ashamed of owning these books. A thorough look at the titles in the forlorn stack of books Salinger has photographed exposes the precise areas of confusion and desire kept hidden by their purchasers.

Salinger sees these stacks of worn and abject books as portraits of their owners, portraying aspects of their private dreams and wishes for a psychic or physical make-over. Salinger has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Oregon and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has shown her work nationally and in Canada, Chile, Spain and Portugal. Her work is in collections in the United States, Canada and France. Salinger has been featured on PBS Television, National Public Radio, MTV, and Radio National Australia. She has published two books: In My Room: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms (1995), with an introduction by Tobias Wolff; and Living Solo (1998). Her third book, Middle Aged Men, is slated for release in 2007. She teaches Photography at the University of New Mexico.

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Trapped in the Mirror from the Self-Help series C-print, 24 x 20 inches, 2003

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Claire Watkins New York, New York

“Portrait of My Brain has 1192 LED lights representing everyone I can remember from my life. Electricity travels through the yellow circuit boards, mechanisms stroke their surfaces, making the LED’s flicker on and off... I make machines that become creatures. I am fascinated by systems found within the body and the parallel structures located outside of it: the human brain and circuit boards, nerve systems and trees. How is the brain a computer, and how is it an electrical storm?... Neurons fire in your head with the memories of your life. Your toast gets burned.”

T

he work of Claire Watkins has a jumpy, complex beauty and motility usually

seen only in living beings. Her work is concerned with phenomena and shimmers between the poles of fact and fiction, mirroring aspects of both. She addresses internal structures and functions as aspects of self-portraiture that are beneath the skin. Her piece Portrait of My Brain is a confection of light, an invention melded to hard fact. Her fantastical construct is nothing less than a poet’s model of emotion and the inexplicable phenomenon of thought. Her intimate model transmutes the various functions and structures of the body into a glowing spill of electricity traveling from one node to another. Claire Watkins grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. She has exhibited her sculptures and installations throughout the country, including in New York, Washington D.C., Virginia, New Mexico, Washington and Missouri and has shown internationally in London and Japan. Her work has received high praise in many publications, and she has received numerous awards and scholarships including the World Karakuri Contest Travel Grant to Aichi, Japan and an Artist-in-Residence award at Centrum’s Creative Residencies in Port Townsend, Washington.

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Portrait of My Brain motors, metal, circuit boards, LED lights, size variable, 2004

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Sheilah Wilson Santa Fe, New Mexico

“I am interested in the absurdity of our efforts, as we struggle for meaning and our own place within narrative. Through exaggeration and humor, my work offers briefly tenable explanations of the new. In the story that I am telling, there is a re-invention of systems, organization and nomenclatures.

In each case, I recognize the absurdity of inserting myself into the role of narrator, but I enjoy the tilting of story as I lean heavily on certain parts, re-draw others and completely fabricate the rest.”

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heilah Wilson’s photographs stand comfortably within the tradition of

North American landscape photography, with its romanticized images of wide open spaces and the limitless new horizons of the American dream. Via her camera’s mechanism, Wilson inserts her self into a landscape that is already a cliché. She deflects the intent of the cliché through a subtle imagistic shift, overlaying its meaning with her own narrative. In these fabrications, she combines the sweetness, hope and blunt force of 18th century expansionism with the tourist’s lust for the next new view. The photographs assert her right to slip her own reality into the somewhat moth eaten American myth. Even the sky is a color from the past, Kodachrome Blue. She is riding a magnificent horse of the historical West. She has come into the territory, Charley Russell land, and can strike out on her own at any minute; there is nothing beautiful Annie Oakley can’t handle. Sheilah Wilson was born in Caribou River, Nova Scotia. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from NSCAD University and Master of Fine Arts degree from Goldsmiths College in London, England. She has exhibited her work in festivals and shows throughout North America, England, Japan and Israel and has received numerous awards. She is currently the Residency Director at Santa Fe Art Institute.

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Untitled from the Flight series C-print, 32 x 40 inches, 2007

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CREDITS 516 ARTS Staff Suzanne Sbarge, Executive Director

516 ARTS Founding Sponsors

Andrew John Cecil, Program Director

McCune Charitable Foundation

Rhainnon Mercer, Gallery Assistant

Anonymous

Mandy Hanks, Intern

Board of Directors John Lewinger, Chair Arturo Sandoval, Vice President

Bank of Albuquerque BGK Group Charter Bank

Joni Thompson, Treasurer/Secretary

Coldwell Banker

Advisory Committee

First Community Bank

Kim Arthun

First National Bank of Santa Fe

Miguel Gandert

Goodman Realty Group

Arif Khan Norty Kalishman

Grubb & Ellis

Diane Karp

Heritage Hotels & Resorts

Wendy Lewis

John & Jamie Lewinger

Danny Lopez Susan McAllister

J.T. Michaelson

Christopher Mead

Mosher Enterprises

Elsa Menendez

New Mexico Bank & Trust

Volunteers

New Mexico Business Weekly

Annalisa Aguilar • Bradley Baumgarner-Kirby • Clint Bergum

Paradigm & Company

Nicolasa Chavez • Rufus Cohen • Cristina de los Santos • Stella de Sa Rego Natalia DePaula • Cindi Gaudette • Shamaine Giannini • Rachel Harris

SG Properties

Janet Hevey • Bryan Kaiser • Jennifer Moreland • Art Rosenberg

Stewart Title of Albuquerque

Christy Snyder • Carrie Thompson • Eleanor Trabaudo • Hue Walker J.D. Wellborn • Kay Whitney • Roman Wolf-Cecil

Sunrise Bank Technology Ventures Corporation

Exhibition Catalog Design: Suzanne Sbarge Biographies: Kathleen Whitney Printing: Don Mickey Designs

CREDITS Special Thanks Pat Berrett Photography City of Albuquerque Deptartment of Economic Development COMP USA Doug Banks & Karen Weaver, Desert Dog Technology, Inc. Downtown Action Team Escuela del Sol Montessori, Inc. Elizabeth Liming & Tim Laufenberg, Grubb & Ellis The Harwood Art Center Historic District Improvement Company Hyatt Hotel Scott Krichau Don Mickey Designs Randy McDonald, Miller Stratvert Morningside Antiques National Hispanic Cultural Center New Mexico Department of Tourism

516 ARTS is an independent, nonprofit art space — a unique

New Mexico Technet

hybrid venue somewhere between a gallery and museum.

Theresa Bell, Romero Rose

The exhibitions program features high caliber, content-driven

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work through a series of collaborative exhibitions. The

Unsung

mission of 516 ARTS is to serve as a museum-style gallery

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to attract audiences to Downtown Albuquerque for arts

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and cultural activities; to forge links for the arts between

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Albuquerque, Santa Fe and the greater Southwest region;

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and to help establish Albuquerque as an art destination.

Word of Eye, web site design

Exhibition catalog published by 516 ARTS 516 Central Avenue SW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102 telephone: 505-242-1445 • www.516arts.org © 516 ARTS, 2007

COVER, left to right (back to front): Juliana Coles, Crow Brings the Message (detail), from mixed media artist’s book Susan Byrnes, Support System, cast iron Alexandria Levin, Smile in Pink, oil on masonite panel Claire Watkins, Portrait of My Brain, motors, metal, circuit boards, LED lights Holly Lynton, September from Mean Ceiling series, C-print Sheilah Wilson, Untitled from the Flight series, C-print Adrienne Salinger, Trapped in the Mirror from the Self Help series, C-print Abby Robinson, AutoWorks (detail), silver print Jennifer Nehrbass, Postulating Jane (detail), oil on canvas Lalla Essaydi, Converging Territories #10, C-print