Opening: Kevin Sloan: Sacred Grove
K Contemporary is pleased to present Sacred Grove, a major new exhibition by Kevin Sloan and the artist’s first solo exhibition in Santa Fe since 2003. The exhibition marks a meaningful homecoming for Sloan, who lived and worked in Santa Fe for a decade during a formative period in his career. The region’s extraordinary landscape, layered cultural history, and enduring relationship with the natural world became deeply woven into his artistic practice, and today his work is included in the permanent collection of the New Mexico Museum of Art. More than twenty years after his last Santa Fe exhibition, Sloan returns with what is arguably the most immersive and conceptually unified body of work of his career.
Inspired by the sacred groves of the ancient Mediterranean, places of worship that existed before stone temples were built, Sacred Grove transforms the gallery into an imagined sanctuary where nature itself becomes the site of reverence. Each composition centers on an illuminated sculptural form surrounded by recurring offerings: opened melons spilling seeds, black-and-white photographs, pearls, conch shells, flowering morning glories, prickly pear cactus, animals, fragments of classical sculpture, and the recurring image of the Earth. Together they create a visual language that unfolds across the exhibition, revealing that each painting is another glimpse into the same mysterious place.
In an age defined by acceleration, distraction, and environmental uncertainty, Sacred Grove proposes another way of seeing. Sloan asks not simply what an object is, but what it bears. What endures? What remains sacred? These paintings invite viewers to pause long enough for attention to become contemplation, and for contemplation to become reverence.
Sacred Grove, opens to the public on Saturday, September 12, 2026, from 4–6 PM MT, at K Contemporary, located at 203 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM. The artist will be in attendance.
