SOLO EXHIBITION | SCOTTSDALE, AZ
Altamira Fine Art Scottsdale is pleased to present a new exhibition for New Mexico artist Alvin Gill Tapia, December 6-18, 2021.
Please join us for an Artist Reception during the Holiday ArtWalk, Thursday, December 9 from 7-9pm.
ANCIENT TIES
Sacred spaces envelope visitors in a sense of peaceful belonging—a state Alvin Gill-Tapia captures in his paintings of Southwestern religious structures. Calm, quiet, suffused with love and light: these are the qualities of being and believing that Gill-Tapia achieves through his architectural abstractions.
Gill-Tapia’s scenes reflect his own origins: Born in Santa Fe, the descendent of New Mexican ranchers, he grew up steeped in the architectural vernacular of his home state—the adobe buildings that seem to rise straight from the soil, built from the mud that molds the landscape and the lives lived in the high desert. “They rise from the earth to offer shelter,” he says of the spiritual structures. “Even when I was young, whenever I would walk inside, I would feel at ease, at peace—it was and remains a beautiful feeling. Collectors of my work say they feel the same.”
People, while not present in his paintings, figure as the builders of such sanctuaries. “I wanted to reference the religious history of the various communities who have used these buildings: the tribes and their pueblos as well as the small Hispanic enclaves throughout the state.” His minimalist compositions distill such histories into abstract forms shaped by color and contrast. Metallics—copper, silver and most often gold leaf—lend luminosity. Vibrant hues—cadmium red, lime green—pop from his expanses of azure sky and his slivers of sepia land.
The decade he spent studying art in New York City nurtured his attunement to light: midday, he’d migrate to SoHo and watch as the bricked streets baked in rays as soft and warm as the beams he knew in New Mexico. Now back in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, he immerses himself in the separate peace of his art. “I want people to see these buildings through the lens of the feelings I experience when I’m inside them: a sense of home, comfort and always calm.”
Pre-sales available. Contact az@altamiraart.com or call (480) 949-1256 for more details.