Experience H. Joe Waldrum’s Polaroids. Opening August 10 at RioBravoFineArt in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
The Waldrum Polaroids
opening: Saturday, August 10, 6-9 pm
RioBravoFineArt, Truth or Consequences, NM
The August show opening at RioBravoFineArt in Truth or Consequences is H. Joe Waldrum: The SX70 Polaroids. Waldrum, the founder of RioBravoFineArt, left an artistic legacy of paintings, etchings, Polaroid SX70 images, and videography. This show will be a unique opportunity to view a lesser-known aspect of this highly regarded New Mexico artist.
By the 1980s, Waldrum was a successful Northern New Mexico artist. During part of this decade, he split his time between New York City and Taos. On the last day of one of his Taos visits, he wanted to capture images of a church for a painting. He rushed into Taos and found a Polaroid SX70 camera. This camera served the purpose of capturing his last-minute images and initiated Waldrum’s life-long fascination with the Polaroid SX70 technology that resulted in thousands of images.
Waldrum showed a dedication to the artistic potential of the format. The small format, five inches by five inches, combines with Waldrum’s talent for composition and color to create images with a certain intimacy and a jewel-like quality. One of his most famous SX70 images, The Iglesia de Arroyo Hondo (1982), shows Our Lady of Sorrows Mission Chapel in early evening light. It is a composition of simple planar shapes and forms and shows a clear link to his work in abstractionism.
After his career in Northern New Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s and a brief stint on a ranch near Socorro, Waldrum opened RioBravoFineArt as his own studio/gallery in Truth or Consequences in 1998. He died in 2003, and the bulk of his collection of SX70 images was donated to the New Mexico Museum of History Photo Archives Collection. The only showing of a part of this large collection was at the Albuquerque Museum.
RioBravoFineArt invites you to the opening reception of H. Joe Waldrum: The Polaroids on Saturday, August 10, 6-9 pm. The exhibition will be on view through October 27, 2024.
riobravofineartgallery.com
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