An Artist Who Put His Stamp on the Southwest—and Vice Versa
After Ed Mell’s passing, his Phoenix studio tells the story of a low-key artist whose Southwest images reached the nation on a postage stamp and beyond.
January 29, 2026
sculpture
Guided by Pueblo Artists, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Unclenches from Foundational Myth
Tewa artists and scholars offer a challenge—along with tea, letters, and a remarkable map—to an institution whose namesake claimed their ancestral lands.
January 27, 2026
An Artist Who Recasts Care as Ceremony, from Kitchen to Nail Salon
Tucson-based artist Anh-Thuy Nguyen declares "rice is mother" in her current solo exhibition. At her studio, a visit begins with a meal.
January 20, 2026
Unpacking the Uneasy Cultural Hybridity of Paula Castillo’s Denver Monoliths
In Paula Castillo's three new public artworks across downtown Denver, cultural fusion is an optimistic and ideologically risky proposition.
January 15, 2026
Sprung from Suburbia, Summer Raine Young Seeks Inherent Queerness of a Desert City
In cyanotypes and soft sculptures, genderfluid artist maps queer elements of Phoenix—from dilapidated signs to their own body.
January 08, 2026
Places Planted in the Mind: Jorge Ruiz Brings Together Cross-Border Towns, in Miniature
Jorge Ruiz intertwines Tucson and Nogales in his exhibition at Arizona's Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. His "imperfect" process is grueling.
October 28, 2025
Don’t Call it “O’Keeffe Country”: Two Pueblo Artists Take Back New Mexico’s Map
From a courtroom to the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Native artists Mateo Romero and Jason Garcia are correcting the records.
September 30, 2025
PhotographyTexasVol. 12 Obsession
Phoebe Shuman-Goodier Transfigures Trash into Tender Monuments of Care and Possibility
Phoebe Shuman-Goodier’s photography marks her sculptural collaborations with her father, and a shared obsession with transforming a junkyard into art.
September 05, 2025
ArtistsNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession
Obsession: Taylor Engel
Artist Taylor Engel’s varied and chaotic artworks envelop viewers in a shared experience of all-consuming obsession, codependency, and repetition.
September 05, 2025
ReviewNew MexicoVol. 12 Obsession
In Abstracting Nature, New Mexico Artists Collaborate with Wild Entropic Powers
Natural entropy is a tool—and a sustainable ethos—for ten artists in Abstracting Nature at the Albuquerque Museum.
September 05, 2025
The Medium is their Message: Compulsion and Identity in Zion
Artists Stephanie Leitch, Angela Ellsworth, and Nancy Rivera use materially obsessive processes to reflect on the mythos of Utah.
September 05, 2025
Peek Inside Mysterious Southwest Land Artworks You May Never Visit
From James Turrell’s Roden Crater in Arizona to Charles Ross’s Star Axis in New Mexico, some Southwest land art is stubbornly elusive.
August 14, 2025
An Artist Who Braids Cultures, from the Porcelain Trade to Beyoncé
Jennifer Ling Datchuk's live-wire practice is rooted in ceramics but branches into performance, installation—and biting cultural critique.
July 24, 2025
Modern Nature: The Contemporary Art Guide to Southwest Botanical Gardens
Southwest botanical gardens have reshaped their grounds as living museums for stunning—and challenging—contemporary art. Discover seven culture-filled desert oases.
July 03, 2025
Guide to the SITE Santa Fe International: Every Artist, Venue, and Special Project
SITE’s citywide exhibition Once Within a Time is about surreal flow—not completionism. Here’s your primer, with tips from insiders Cecilia Alemani and Brandee Caoba.
June 24, 2025
Texas Artist Michael Tracy Channeled the Violence and Transcendence of the Borderlands
Late artist Michael Tracy hit the Texas border village of San Ygnacio like a "cyclone." His creative aggression melded with an empathic awareness of his adopted home.
May 29, 2025
Travel2025 New Mexico Field Guide
Unique New Mexico: Cognition Enhancer
Cognition Enhancer in Santa Fe is a colorful public sculpture, molecular puzzle, and wild local legend all in one.
May 23, 2025
Travel2025 New Mexico Field Guide
Unique New Mexico: Sol LeWitt, A Square, A Circle
Sol LeWitt's sculpture A Square, A Circle on the New Mexico State University campus is the famed Minimal and Conceptual artist's only outdoor, site-specific work in New Mexico.
May 23, 2025
Travel2025 New Mexico Field Guide
Unique New Mexico: Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts
The Spencer Theater, with its soaring form echoing the surrounding mountains, exemplifies Antoine Predock’s design philosophy.
May 23, 2025
Queering Cowboy Culture with José Villalobos: It’s a Quick, Rough Ride
José Villalobos: Rough Rider at Arizona State University queers the traditional masculinity inherent in cowboy culture’s objects of desire.
May 08, 2025
Meet the “Sad Little Houses” of Dallas, and the Artists on the Front Lines of the Housing Crisis
Three artists confront the Texas housing crisis with street-level projects using piñatas, murals, gentrification walking tours, and more.
May 06, 2025
An Artist Who Wrangles Cattle, Pours Iron, and Pulls Prints
Artist Jack Craft operates a cattle ranch in the Texas Panhandle while producing minimalist sculptures and experimental prints.
April 17, 2025
ArtistsColoradoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Sammy Lee
Denver-based artist Sammy Lee makes highly portable sculptures from paper, but a longing for home is embedded in her materials.
March 07, 2025
ArtistsArizonaVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Urgent Care Art
Urgent Care Art’s pop-ups in quotidian Tucson spaces juxtapose the healing and fear inherent to queer visibility.
March 07, 2025
ArtistsTexasVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Cindee Klement
Houston-based artist Cindee Klement depicts otherwise invisible systems and their interconnections to encourage local ecological recovery in the Energy Capital of the World.
March 07, 2025
ReviewColoradoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Ugo Rondinone’s Aspen Show is a Decadent Confection that Knows its Audience
Ugo Rondinone, creator of Las Vegas’s Seven Magic Mountains, returns to the American West with more rainbows and a light touch.
March 07, 2025
ArtistsTexasVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Gil Rocha
Laredo-based artist Gil Rocha uses found objects from his Texas neighborhood and items purchased across the U.S.-Mexico border to capture the duality of the region.
March 07, 2025
ReviewNew MexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Adapted from a Podcast, Broken Boxes Materializes Artists’ Voices
Ten years of podcast guests contribute to this multimedia exhibition at Albuquerque Museum, foregrounding the playful possibilities of socially engaged art.
March 07, 2025
EssayNew MexicoVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Center of the Universe: Agency and Ecology in a 77-Degree October
Bruce Nauman’s Center of the Universe on the campus of the University of New Mexico inspires a personal ritual and creative essay that asks us to reconnect to the environment and ourselves.
March 07, 2025
ArtistsArizonaVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Shaunté Glover
Shaunté Glover explores the muscular narrative power—and queer, femme force—of women’s basketball through the lens of South Phoenix.
March 07, 2025
