SCULPTURES
Gary Beals
Sally Hepler
Janet Lippincott

PAINTINGS
Martha Rea Baker
Elaine Holien
Julian Jackson
Janet Lippincott
Mary Long-Postal
Martha Mans
Kurt Meer
Amy Metier
Daniel Phill
Vanita Smithey
Laurel Swab
Jinni Thomas
Kevin Tolman
Pauline Ziegen

COLLECTIONS
New Mexico Modernist Collection
Project Spaces Installations

Karan Ruhlen Gallery
225 Canyon Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.820.0807
info@karanruhlen.com

2012 Exhibition Schedule

DANIEL PHILL April 20th
Wild Flora

SANTA FE, NM.  For avid gardeners there are two strategies for making decisions about what to plant and where. For the formal gardener, premeditated structure with sculpted colors, planned surprises and directed walkways comprise the strategy. Conversely, there is the spontaneous sower of seeds who casts them into a space with abandon, prepared to work with nature, cultivating whatever takes root and building the garden around the plants that thrive and the colors that enchant.

Daniel Phill falls into the latter category. He eschews the neat and formal, preferring a responsive approach. Rather than controlling the viewer’s movement through his intuitive gardens on canvas, he thrives on the unexpected and its potential for pushing and pulling the eye from colorful points of energy to reflective pauses and mysterious distances.

“Unlike natural cycles of flower and fade, Daniel’s gardens are eternally cheerful and in full bloom,” says Karan Ruhlen, who is hosting the artist’s 10th exhibition show Wild Flora. “The gallery is truly transformed when we mount one of Daniel’s exhibitions,” Ruhlen continues. “People walk in and can’t help but smile as they scan the pools and drips of intense color or follow the movement of brushstrokes or the traces of a trowel.”

Phill has found endless ways to manipulate the plasticity of acrylic paints, inks and stains, materials that he buys in large quantities in every color under the sun. He begins with the canvas lying horizontal, jumping in “with the faith,” he says, that something will develop from his spontaneous applications of color and “happy accidents.”  Once the initial layers of color have stabilized, he places the canvas on a wall and starts the process of editing and reworking it to satisfy his personal aesthetics. The titles are appended after the fact, inspired by botanical names or adjectives, the sounds of which give him pleasure.

“Collectors revel in the intermingling of abstraction and figuration that Daniel achieves,” Ruhlen explains. “His paintings represent the best of both worlds by alluding to atmosphere and representation while retaining the visceral surface tension of paint on a two-dimensional surface. More importantly, like nature’s endless variety, Daniel’s remarkable inventiveness is so infinite that no two paintings are ever alike.”

Born and raised in Washington State, Phill attended Washington State University, Pullman, and received his BFA in 1978 from San Francisco Art Institute. He received his MFA in 1983 from Stanford University and currently lives in San Francisco where he works in a shipyard warehouse studio on Pier 70.

Janet Lippincott May 18th
Twenty Years of Monotypes

SANTA FE, NM.  The Monotype process dates back to the mid 1600s and is made by creating an image on a smooth non-absorbent matrix like a sheet of glass, then pressing a sheet of paper to the image to make the print. For this exhibition, Lippincott’s monotypes from 1983-2003 are the focus. 

Santa Fe printmaker Ron Pokrasso introduced Lippincott to the monotype process at Santa Fe Graphics Workshop in the early 80s, when Lippincott was in her mid 60s.  They worked together for twenty years with Janet’s last printing session in 2003.  "She approached the printing plate as if it were a painting," Pokrosso recalls. "She preferred heavy, thick inks, which were a challenge to print. When I'd make suggestions for alternative ways to work, she shrugged them off as too fussy, preferring to follow her own vision.

"Janet was truly fearless in her approach to materials," says Karan Ruhlen, who represented Lippincott during her lifetime and now represents her estate. “The chine collé monotypes of the 90’s are particularly good examples of her command of the medium in what might at first appear to be random or even chance compositions."

The sense of authority Lippincott conveys in a wide variety of media is the lasting impression one takes away from each of her exhibitions.

Concludes Karan Ruhlen, "Although Janet is no longer with us, her paintings are witness to her indomitable spirit as a survivor of World War II blitzkriegs, as a pioneer of abstraction in New Mexico, and as a woman who competed in a man's art world at the time. One senses her empowerment in everything she did."

“Janet was an artist to the core,” says Ruhlen. “Making art was like breathing—it was her way of talking and expressing emotions. She was always looking for fresh ways to communicate her viewpoints whether in two or three-dimensional media.

During her lengthy career, Lippincott received many awards, including the 2002 New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and the 2003 Arts Achievement Award from the New Mexico Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.

tentative schedule