Show Preview | Greyshoes, Larsen & Markwardt

Santa Fe, NM
Manitou Galleries, September 13-October 7

This story was featured in the September 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

Autumn colors come early to Santa Fe as Manitou Galleries showcases three artists—Greyshoes, Fran Larsen, and Sharon Markwardt—at its Canyon Road location. According to the gallery’s associate director, Cyndi Hall, the three “are all known for their outstandingly vibrant palettes.” Each member of the trio, all of whom are Santa Fe residents, has about 10 works on display in the group show, appropriately entitled A Color Story. And they all attend the opening reception on Friday, September 13, from 5 to 7:30 p.m., which also features mariachi music from a local band to entertain guests.

Greyshoes is the Native American family name under which Upton Ethelbah Jr. creates sculptures distinguished by what he describes as “flowing, curvy, highly energetic lines.” He carves his pieces in lustrous stone like pink onyx or snowy white Carrara marble—“the same stone Michelangelo used,” he points out. From these stone works, he directs Bronze-smith Fine Art Foundry in Arizona to cast limited-edition bronzes for which he often selects vivid patinas that further engage the imagination. His ANASAZI TSIDEH, for example, captures the plumed elegance of a parrot in a rainbow of hues plus a touch of gleaming gold on its beak. The highly successful 76-year-old sculptor came to this art form only in his mid-50s, after retiring as Director of Student Living at the Santa Fe Indian School. But he draws deeply from the combined heritage of Santa Clara Pueblo on his mother’s side and the White Mountain Apache Tribe of his father, Upton Ethelbah, who passed away at the age of 102 on July 16. “I dedicate my work this year to my father,” Greyshoes adds.

Since moving to Santa Fe from Michigan more than 40 years ago, Larsen has gloried in New Mexico’s Technicolor surroundings. “When I’m on an early morning walk,” she says, “the colors tell me to go back and paint what I’ve seen.” Her paintings, done in acrylics on watercolor board, give the delightful impression that she dips her brush directly into the sunrise or sunset, suffusing her interpretations of the state’s landscapes and architecture with incandescent energy. So radiant are results like ETERNAL PUEBLO, TAOS that the paint even extends beyond the canvas itself, into the wooden frames that Larsen embellishes with hand-carved notches. “Each color tells me what the next color needs to be,” she says of her “totally intuitive” approach.

Native Texan Sharon Markwardt combines her training in art and biology with her love of animals and her irrepressible joie de vivre to paint large-scale, realistic portraits of familiar farm critters in dazzling pop-art colors. A photograph that Hall took and shared with her of some curious goats looking over a fence on the Hopi Reservation in Rough Rock, AZ, became the basis of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. The artist explains her visual approach this way: “The more color I put in, the more I see and the more exciting it is.”

For her part, Hall shares that sense of excitement. “These three artists use color in ways unlike anyone else we represent. And the way that they do it is breathtaking.” —Norman Kolpas

contact information
505.986.9833
www.manitougalleries.com

This story was featured in the September 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

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