co.elaboration
New work by Ernst Gruler, celebrating GVG Contemporary’s10-year anniversary
Aug. 2 – Sept. 15, 2019
241 Delgado Street | Santa Fe, NM 87501 info@gvgcontemporary.com gvgcontemporary.com | 505.982.1494
ERNST GRULER
Sound Sculptures (from le1 to right): Circle Zen III, Circle Zen IV, and Non Shat II| repurposed steel | ranging from 32-‐67” tall, 18-‐27.5” wide, and 7.5-‐15.5” deep | $1900, $2900, and $4200
Ayer Table with 6 Fame Chairs | wood laminate and mixed media| 30 x 47 x 96 | $19,000
co.elaboration
Painter Blair Vaughn-Gruler and her husband, furniture designer/artist Ernst Gruler, celebrate their gallery’s 10-year anniversary with a duo show
“We’ve been collaborating for decades,” says Ernst Gruler, with a laugh. “This show is the elaboration of our collaboration.” co.elaboration features new work by Blair Vaughn-Gruler, whose process-based approach with intricate loops, lines, marks, and layers of pale-toned oil paint make for large-scale, meditative paintings. Gruler, an artist and designer, has a new line of furniture and sculptures, including “Tree Lights” as well as “Tank Lamps,” which, built from repurposed scrapyard steel parts along with fine Japanese paper, make for a strong counterpart to Vaughn-Gruler’s meditations. With co.elaboration, the couple celebrates a decade running GVG Contemporary together, a gallery complete with two sculpture gardens on Delgado Street, part of the central, Canyon Road art district in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The show, up through September 15, 2019, fills the walls with Vaughn-Gruler’s new paintings and features Gruler’s fine-art furniture as well as his popular Sound Sculptures, bells made from repurposed steel parts and glass. This is a rare glimpse at the creative visions that drive GVG Contemporary, where, typically, visitors can also see work by a group of contemporary painters and multimedia artists whom the couple has represented over the years. Now, Vaughn-Gruler and Gruler are at the apex of their careers, spending double-time in the studio and gallery as they build their oeuvres.
ERNST GRULER has developed his
design sensibiliLes over the past 25 years, a1er earning his BFA and MA in furniture design. He combines painterly aestheLcs, funcLonality, and cra1smanship to create works of contemporary fine art furniture, sculpture, and painLngs that are enduring and unique. For Gruler, creaLng art is a form of acLve meditaLon. When asked how long it takes him to make something, he says, “the sum total of my moments in life so far.” P o p u l a r w o r k s a r e h i s S o u n d Sculptures, bells melded from cast-‐offs from cars, farm machinery, and former pressure tanks or canisters. Gruler uses these repurposed steel parts to cra1 pracLcal, sculptural objects. He also works with tree saplings, repurposed steel, and handmade paper to create his Tree Lights and Flared Tank Lamps.
Gatekeeper III Sound Sculpture on Diamond Table with Flared Tank Lamps on Stepped End Tables | repurposed steel, wood laminate, mixed media, and handmade paper
Ernst Gruler, Navigator (le1), repurposed steel and glass & Deere John, repurposed steel.
Ernst Gruler creates sound sculptures out of the unique repurposed steel parts he finds. Clockwise, from le1: The Mighty O, Ring Gear II, Split Rim, and Gatekeeper III, ranging from $1100-‐$2900.
Flared Tank Lamps, repurposed steel and handmade paper, ranging from $1200-‐$5700
Tree Lights, maple sapling, found rocks, mixed media, and handmade paper, $4500 each.
Ayer Table with 6 Fame Chairs | mixed media on wood laminate 30 x 47 x 96 (table) | $19,000 for the set
As I Imagine 4 Top Dining Set with four chairs | mixed media on wood laminate 48 x 48 x 30 | $14,000
Schneider Dining Ensemble can be rearranged to make sebngs of different configuraLons, depending on the party size. Gruler applies texture and paint to wood laminate as he carefully cra1s designs that are unique, inLmate, and ergonomic.
co.elabora)on
Blair Vaughn-‐Gruler and Ernst Gruler celebrate GVG Contemporary’s 10-‐year anniversary, yet their story in art, business, and love began decades ago
For Blair Vaughn-‐Gruler and Ernst Gruler, celebraLng a decade together in the business of art is significant. The couple met in Michigan nearly 30 years ago when Gruler, a lifelong musician, was strumming his guitar at a gallery where he was a board member and curator. It was a moment for Cupid, and the two le1 former relaLonships and started a new life together. Gruler had a background in high-‐end furniture and model making and was working on his MA in Furniture Design at Northern Michigan University at the Lme. Vaughn-‐Gruler, who was already showing her work in galleries and exhibiLons across the country, encouraged him to also start showing. Their life in art together began. For a day job, the couple opened a bouLque, selling clothing, jewelry, beads, and imported arLfacts. The business was so successful, they moved to Sedona, Arizona to open another shop, along with Vaughn-‐Gruler’s younger son, a painter and animaLon arLst (her elder, who works with art and technology, had gone off to college by then). They found a homeland in the Southwest, but the wandering itch got them again. Gruler, a1er all, had spent a couple of his formaLve years hitching on the road, gaining life experience that likely made him the thoughhul, open-‐minded stepfather and arLst he became. Now his adventures came with a family, not in tow, but holding the reins.
Vaughn-‐Gruler had long loved Santa Fe and the city’s art scene, having spent several years in New Mexico back in the 1970s. The couple sold their shops and decided to start a new kind of business: a gallery where they’d show their work and represent arLsts of similar aestheLcs. GVG Contemporary was born with a combinaLon of their names: Gruler and Vaughn-‐Gruler. A decade in business has seen deeply individual development. When not at the gallery, the couple shares a home together in Lamy, New Mexico, where Vaughn-‐Gruler has her painLng studio and Gruler has taken over the bejer part of a six-‐car garage (he also has a metal shop where he welds in Santa Fe). In the meanLme, Vaughn-‐Gruler, who got a BFA in PainLng at Northern Michigan University in 1979, completed her MFA in Visual Art at Vermont College of Fine Art in 2010. “Going to grad school in my 50s helped me re-‐contextualize my painLng pracLce for the 21st century,” she says. Meanwhile, Gruler has picked up welding and acrylic painLng, and his sculptural furniture has gone through stages of refinement. Gruler has become more fluid in his use of different mediums and says his work has, in a sense, become “less linear.” A table, for example, is shaped and curved so that all seated can see each other, and there’s no head. Some tables designs are composed of two or three parts that fit together in different ways or can be separated for other purposes. In addiLon to his “Tree Lights,” made from saplings of sLll-‐standing trees, found rocks, and handmade paper, along with his “Tank Lamps,” cra1ed from repurposed steel canisters opened like petals and combined with handmade paper, Gruler’s works make for a strong complement to Vaughn-‐Gruler’s meditaLve painLngs. Together, Vaughn-‐Gruler and Gruler have shaped GVG Contemporary with synchronisLc aestheLcs. Individually, they are creaLng at the apex of their careers, and co.elaboraFon is their latest iteraLon of a complex collaboraLon of two creaLve minds.
GVG Contemporary is a gallery showcasing painLng, sculpture, fine art furniture, and arLst-‐ made jewelry on the corner of historic Canyon Road and Delgado Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico, owned by husband-‐and-‐wife local arLst team Blair Vaughn-‐Gruler and Ernst Gruler.
241 Delgado Street | Santa Fe, NM 87501 | info@gvgcontemporary.com | gvgcontemporary.com | 505.982.1494