Though there’s a real person underneath the mask, they take on the animal or spiritual persona of the mask. “Masks offer an unlimited range of transformative experiences that I re-contextualize into mundane surroundings. It’s the juxtaposition of transcendental transfiguration within an ordinary environment that makes mask imagery powerful. Her paintings celebrate the transformative power of masks, costumes, rituals and dance within the context of quotidian activities.

Susan Contreras was born in Mexico where art and daily life are inseparable. (Mr Abdalla had a one-person exibition of this work in April-May 2007 at Artspace 116 in Albuquerque.) This physical revelation ended Abdalla’s career as a picture painter and led him toward constructing triggers for visceral experiences.

Intellectually I knew nothing but my body understood everything,” Abdalla said. What I felt in my body informed me and allowed me to experience being there. On its surface were layer upon layer of pictographs that were meant to teach, communicate and tell stories. “I was standing in front of a beautiful natural rock face filled with blues, reds, blacks, whites and oranges that made it a work of art on its own. Abdalla came to his current body of work through an epiphany he experienced in Australia. Exposed tree roots, reflections on water, erosion-caused landscape features, stones, plants and rustling leaves become part of a mystical dance of color, raw energy and shape that may be embraced and translated through sculpture. While hiking, Abdalla studied nature’s silent language of form that may be the literal and figurative roots of all calligraphy and the structural blueprints of symbolic language. Retired UNM studio arts professor Nick Abdalla explores the connection between art, nature and human perception in his mixed media freeform constructions. Cultural phenomena like the visual arts often act as bridges between earthbound and spiritual realities.

Blavatsky searched for correspondences between natural phenomena in the physical world with human perspectives on the spiritual plane. Universal attraction and correspondences between great masses have been named gravity by some scientists, while string theorists describe infinitesimally small vibrating ring shaped strings as the true substance of the subatomic realm and correspondently gigantic galactic super strings.Īlchemists like Isaac Newton and occultists like H. When particle physicists try to explain the adhesive that holds together the subatomic world of matter they use terms like particle affinity and charm. Natural magic and true myths are merely metaphors for natural forces that shape humanity’s experience and help us to connect with the living universal consciousness. Nick Abdalla, Susan Contreras, Santiago Perez, Emily Trovillion and Erika Wanenmacher are just a handful of the many artists who embrace and celebrate the transformative and healing power of art through its ability to distill the archetypes of the unconscious and capture occult energy. From the quotidian legerdemain practiced by stage magician illusionists to the almost constant confusion of myth and lie in ordinary speech and writing, magic and myth have been consistently denigrated by our linear culture.ĭespite collective ignorance and misunderstanding, true magic and meaningful myths are vibrantly alive in the art and philosophy of many New Mexican artists. MAGIC AND MYTH are terms that have true meaning but are often misused as examples of unreal energies and fictitious events. Print this page using your web browser for a copy of the resource list. Scroll down to see a resource list of related galleries and artist studios with links.

Subatomic iconographer