Vol. 8 Medium + Support

ArtistsVol. 8 Medium + Support

In Southwest Contemporary Vol. 8: Medium + Support, guest juror Laura Copelin discusses the jurying process and themes that thread the ten featured artists together.  

Laura Copelin • September 01, 2023

FeatureSouthwestVol. 8 Medium + Support

Eco art is attracting a new generation of artists, but when working with the land, there’s a way to do it right and a way to do it wrong.

Natalie Hegert • September 01, 2023

From the EditorVol. 8 Medium + Support

Southwest Contemporary publisher Lauren Tresp discusses the publication's role in the arts ecosystem of the Southwest—including some behind-the-scenes work building networks and sharing resources.

Lauren Tresp • September 01, 2023

FeatureUtahVol. 8 Medium + Support

Building Man, an annual, week-long desert rave and art festival in Green River, Utah, celebrates artists who work with found and reclaimed materials.

Emily Arntsen • September 01, 2023

ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 8 Medium + Support

Josh Tafoya ushers New Mexico’s rich textile history into the contemporary world of fashion and design, keeping old traditions alive and telling new stories within his work.

Justin Duyao • September 01, 2023

WritingsNew MexicoVol. 8 Medium + Support

In the early 20th century, bricks were brought over Raton Pass to Raton, New Mexico from the Trinidad Brick Company. We stole this brick for our backyard.

Spenser Willden • September 01, 2023

EssayVol. 8 Medium + Support

In this essay, Audrey Molloy dissects the stealth palm and the iconographies of the palm tree, telegraph pole, and cell phone tower as visual media that convey myths of Western expansion and technological innovation.

Audrey Molloy • September 01, 2023

Studio VisitUtahVol. 8 Medium + Support

Salt Lake City–based artist Lenka Konopasek disrupts and decenters anthropocentrism with her three-dimensional paper sculptures, whose prickly paper strips instill aversion and attraction, as if growing out of the wall.

Alexander Ortega • September 01, 2023

InterviewOklahomaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Oklahoma-based artist Raven Halfmoon (Caddo) discusses the material and conceptual underpinnings of her large-scale ceramic works.

Coco Picard • September 01, 2023

ReviewColoradoVol. 8 Medium + Support

The exhibition AgriCULTURE: Art Inspired by the Land is a multi-venue project that features conceptual and reverential artworks connected to farmers and farming.

Deborah Ross • September 01, 2023

EssayVol. 8 Medium + Support

In this essay, Tyler Stallings pens a letter to the University of Arizona Museum of Art regarding Willem de Kooning’s stolen painting Woman-Ochre.

Tyler Stallings • September 01, 2023

ArtistsTexasVol. 8 Medium + Support

Ariel Wood leverages plumbing into an aesthetic and artistic endeavor that interrogates the social and material realities of our lives.

Joshua Ware • September 01, 2023

FeatureTexasVol. 8 Medium + Support

JD Pluecker explores the artworks of five artists in the exhibition Soy de Tejas, looking at issues of home and belonging in Texas.

JD Pluecker • September 01, 2023

ArtistsArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Phoenix-based artist alejandro t. acierto's work explores the nodes of digital culture, neoimperialism, genealogies of image-making practices, and the de- and re-contextualization of Indigenous cultural artifacts.

Gina Pugliese • September 01, 2023

ArtistsArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Born in Pakistan and residing in Phoenix, Safwat Saleem’s multidisciplinary art explores the experience of being an immigrant father with equal measures of joy, sorrow, and resistance.

Maggie Grimason • September 01, 2023

ReviewTexasVol. 8 Medium + Support

Ja’Tovia Gary’s I KNOW IT WAS THE BLOOD at the Dallas Museum of Art positions daily life, ritual, and cultural traditions on the center stage.

Laura Neal • September 01, 2023

ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 8 Medium + Support

Rosemary Meza-DesPlas's varied and multi-faceted work, deeply rooted in the power of the human figure, addresses feminism, cultural identity, and contemporary politics. 

Scotti Hill • September 01, 2023

Studio VisitArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Phoenix-based artist Estrella Esquilín talks about her evolving studio practice, in which community is as important as the construction materials and experimental animation she uses to address identity and place.

Lynn Trimble • September 01, 2023

PhotographyArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Phoenix-based artist Claire A. Warden experiments with camera-less processes to push against the boundaries of photography and identity.

Natalie Hegert • September 01, 2023

ReviewNew MexicoVol. 8 Medium + Support

Bruce Nauman: His Mark at SITE Santa Fe is the internationally recognized artist's first solo show in New Mexico and includes never-before-shown work.

Maggie Grimason • September 01, 2023

ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 8 Medium + Support

Margarita Paz-Pedro works with adobe, natural clay, and porcelain, interrogating the history of the materials and our understanding of them to create space for new connections and meanings.

Maggie Grimason • September 01, 2023

ArtistsArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Tucson-based artist Lizz Denneau’s sumptuous and extravagant creations force us to reckon with their simultaneous beauty and horror.

Scotti Hill • September 01, 2023

ArtistsTexasVol. 8 Medium + Support

Fernando Andrade, an artist based in San Antonio, paints vibrant scenes of Latinx fiestas on styrofoam plates, reclaiming the material as a transmitter of joyful origins rather than disposable mementos.

Gina Pugliese • September 01, 2023

FeatureVol. 8 Medium + SupportWyoming

The Ucross Residency Program near Sheridan, Wyoming, supports artists in an obligation-free program on a working ranch that’s all about creativity, bonding, good eating, and resting.

Steve Jansen • September 01, 2023

Vol. 8 Medium + SupportArtistsTexas

Dallas-based artist Narong Tintamusik explores themes of personal and cultural heritage while acknowledging the corporeal relationship between humanity and waste.

Joshua Ware • September 01, 2023

ArtistsTexasVol. 8 Medium + Support

Bella Varela’s colorfully irreverent interdisciplinary practice disfigures the facade of the American Dream to betray the weaknesses in the foundation of Western visual culture.

Justin Duyao • September 01, 2023

EssayVol. 8 Medium + Support

Meggan Gould speculates on the future of photographic practice and the potential of the anthotype process, in which plant-based photosensitive emulsions create ephemeral prints.

Meggan Gould • September 01, 2023

FeatureColoradoVol. 8 Medium + Support

Rough Gems, a curatorial fellowship at Denver’s Union Hall, provides funding and gallery space for emerging local curators.

Sommer Browning • September 01, 2023

ReviewCaliforniaVol. 8 Medium + Support

Xican-a.o.x. Body at the Cheech presents a robust study in Chicano art, past and present, assembling 140 artworks and seventy artists whose work foregrounds the body as a site for revolution.

Justin Duyao • September 01, 2023

ReviewArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support

The Flowers of My Exile at Lisa Sette Gallery in Phoenix explores conceptual art by Cuban dissident Reynier Leyva Novo, now an artist in exile in Houston, Texas.

Lynn Trimble • September 01, 2023