Borderlands FatimaMeyerRonquilloGallery
FatimaAugustBorderlandsRonquillo26-September8,2022 Meyer Gallery 225 Canyon Road Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.983.1434 www.meyergalleries.com800.779.7387
Santa Fe artist Fatima Ronquillo presents Borderlands at Meyer Gallery, a solo exhibition featuring new paintings informed by the artist’s own sense of place and personal cultural connections. Borderlands also represents dualities and the spaces between – such as the fleeting moment in which night becomes morning, the slow transition from winter to spring, or even dual states of being as we occupy opposing emotions such as love and absence. These symbolic borderlands set the stage for Ronquillo’s compositions, which, in addition to personal symbolism, continue to reference narratives from myth, art history, literature and folklore.
Ronquillo’s paintings blend references from various stages of her life and the landscapes that have influenced her. In a rare self-portrait, The Artist’s Eye and Hand with Jasmines and Sweet Peas, Ronquillo paints her own hand entwined with jasmine flowers and wild sweet peas. The sampaguita jasmine is the national flower of the Philippines, symbolizing the artist’s heritage. Ronquillo was born in San Fernando, Philippines in 1976, and lived there for nearly the first decade of her life before emigrating to the United States with her family in 1987, settling in San Antonio, Texas. Santa Fe was Ronquillo’s first chosen home; she moved here more than ten years ago feeling kindred with New Mexico and a true sense of place in Santa Fe. The wild sweet peas in her self-portrait symbolize her life here, as she associates the plant with her walks along the Santa Fe riverbanks. Ronquillo’s classic portrayals of flora and fauna in her work contribute to the narrative of each composition, with her recent work speaking to our coexistence with animals and guardianship of nature. The pronghorn and red-tailed hawk in the exhibition’s namesake painting represent Texas and New Mexico and the experiences the artist had with the animals in both places. “I’ve never been so aware of the landscape,” says the artist, whose influential road trip through west Texas this year influenced the direction of her work, which has typically focused more on faraway or mythical places. “I wanted to reference wildlife in this place, something more immediate. I think this show is actually me being more at ease and in acknowledgement of where (and who) I am.”
Borderlands oil 41 x 32
Flora with Red Squirrel oil 20 x 16
The Artist’s Eye and Hand with Jasmines and Sweet Peas oil 7 x 5
Girl with Golden-Cheeked Warbler at the Gloaming oil 12 x 12
The Blue Hour oil 32 x 30
The Golden Hour oil 32 x 30
The Armadillo BY ELIZABETH BISHOP for Robert Lowell
This is the time of year when almost every night the frail, illegal fire balloons appear. Climbing the mountain height, rising toward a saint still honored in these parts, the paper chambers flush and fill with light that comes and goes, like hearts. Once up against the sky it’s hard to tell them from the stars— planets, that is—the tinted ones: Venus going down, or Mars, or the pale green one. With a wind, they flare and falter, wobble and toss; but if it’s still they steer between the kite sticks of the Southern Cross, receding, dwindling, solemnly and steadily forsaking us, or, in the downdraft from a peak, suddenly turning dangerous. Last night another big one fell. It splattered like an egg of fire against the cliff behind the house. The flame ran down. We saw the pair of owls who nest there flying up and up, their whirling black-and-white stained bright pink underneath, until they shrieked up out of sight. The ancient owls’ nest must have burned. Hastily, all alone, a glistening armadillo left the scene, rose-flecked, head down, tail down, and then a baby rabbit jumped out, short-eared, to our surprise. So soft!—a handful of intangible ash with fixed, ignited eyes. Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry! O falling fire and piercing cry and panic, and a weak mailed fist clenched ignorant against the sky!
Child with Armadillo and Golden-Cheeked Warbler oil 36 x 30
FloraBorderlandswithRed Squirrel The Artist’s Eye and Hand with Jasmines and Sweet Peas Girl with Golden-Cheeked Warbler at the Gloaming The Blue Hour The Golden Hour Child with Armadillo and Golden-Cheeked Warbler oiloiloiloiloiloiloil 41 x 32 20 x 16 7 x 5 12 x 12 32 x 30 32 x 30 36 x 30 $40,000$36,000$36,000$10,000$5,000$20,000$45,000 Price list FatimaBorderlandsRonquillo
Meyer Gallery 225 Canyon Road Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.983.1434 www.meyergalleries.com800.779.7387