Jack Craft | What Once Was The Sea Is Now A Desert

Kouri + Corrao is excited to announce West Texas rancher and acclaimed metalsmith/printmaker Jack Craft’s solo show What Once Was The Sea Is Now A Desert, on view through June 17, 2023. Kouri + Corrao will host an artist reception May 19, 2023; 5-8pm with complimentary beverages and food from JesuSushi for purchase to celebrate the occasion. What Once Was The Sea Is Now A Desert opens at Kouri + Corrao’s Siler-Rufina location: 3213 Calle Marie, Santa Fe, NM 87507.

“As a child, I would find fossils of seashells on hillsides evidencing that the place where I was standing, 3000 feet above sea level, was once under water,” says Craft. “This new body of work is a synthesis of living through droughts and watching the plant life on my family ranch wither. I am imagining a rusted and monochrome world desiccated as a desert but with ancient geologic forms merged with recent skeletal reefs and marine forms – a landscape horrible, yet beautiful in its own way.”

What Once Was The Sea Is Now A Desert is comprised of fourteen sculptures and five prints. Craft’s artwork consists of solid cast-iron sculptures and prints that utilize his sculptures as tools to create abstract images ultimately a reflection the mass and dimensions of the sculpture.