form & concept

Introductory event for artistic duo Steve Ford and David Forlano, who have collaborated on a collection of wearable sculptures made from polymer clay, precious metals and myriad other materials since 1984. Together, they are Ford / Forlano.

“Everybody that lives in New Mexico goes to Arizona every once in awhile,” says Wesley Anderegg. “That’s the only reason Arizona exists, is to drive through to go to California.” It’s a particularly sacrilegious statement for a born-and-raised Arizonan, but Anderegg hasn’t lived there for decades. He’s also never directly revisited his wild childhood through his figurative ceramics—until now. “As you get older, you kind of get reminiscing,” says the California-based artist. “It’s like, oh man, I’m on the downslope these…

“This thing could fail, and it could be a nightmare,” says Debra Baxter. “But who cares?” The Santa Fe sculptor makes artworks that combine divergent materials—metal, glass and stone, for example—so there’s always a risk that they’ll split apart during the creative process. Informed by her passion for armor and weaponry, Baxter charges ahead fearlessly to create elegant and sometimes dangerous objects. Her new solo exhibition at form & concept, Tooth & Nail, includes flowing bronze breastplates that hold glittering…

For Matthew Szösz, setting up just one glass art experiment is an involved process. The preparation takes half a workday in some cases, and up to four weeks in others. It all leads to that pivotal moment, when the sculpture either takes its final shape or shatters into a million pieces. The Seattle-based artist has repeated this process countless times—with about 75% of his work instantly collapsing into rubble. This spirit of fearless experimentation is reflected in his dazzlingly innovative,…

From a human perspective, the night sky is a densely layered cultural landscape. Long before they were subjects of scientific study, stars were laden with countless overlapping mythologies. Fortune tellers, sailors, writers, architects and artists have all projected profound meaning into the cosmos—tying earthly events to the movements of heavenly bodies. Inner Orbit spotlights contemporary artists who meld fine art and craft mediums with technology for a fresh look at the firmament.

Arizona artist Erika Lynne Hanson weaves a hidden history of the Southwest into her solo exhibition Movement Choir: Landscape Scores. Using a coded language in her fiber and new media artworks, Hanson charts the paths of Cold War missile tests from Green River, Utah to White Sands, New Mexico. The rusty remnants, scattered over more than 600 miles of desert, represent open questions about the nature of humanity and our relationship to nature. Movement Choir: Landscape Scores debuts on Friday,…

Join Debra Baxter for a last look at her solo exhibition Tooth & Nail at this closing reception on Friday, June 15, 5-7 pm. The show officially closes on June 16, 2018. Baxter frequently picks up materials she’s never used before, searching for novel ways to engage the histories of sculpture, jewelry, weaponry or drapery. For Tooth & Nail, the events of the #MeToo movement have fed into her continued interest in the strength, vulnerability and the raw power of…

Virginia artist Jaydan Moore is known for his sculptures made from found, silver-plated tableware. After six years of manipulating these lost heirlooms to reflect on memory and commemoration, he’s accumulated thousands of scrap metal fragments. In his solo exhibition Dust, Moore incorporates the shards into a new series of sculptures. Through these palimpsests and an array of intaglio prints, the artist explores the slow deterioration of memory.

Internationally renowned jewelry designers Robin Waynee and Ryan Roberts are form & concept’s newest represented artists. The couple has worked side-by-side since 1997, and though they strongly influence each other, they maintain separate practices and bodies of work. They’ll present new designs at the special event Introducing Robin Waynee & Ryan Roberts on Friday, June 29 from 5 to 7 pm.

Armond Lara collaborates with form & concept on a monumental art installation that tells the centuries-long story of enslaved Native American children. The Santa Fe artist will send 75 hand-painted, cast resin Flying Blue Buffalo sculptures soaring through the gallery’s atrium. Inspired by his own family history, Lara dreamed up the winged buffalo as a new symbol of Native survival and resilience. Each sculpture in the suspended flock will be labeled with the name of an abducted child. The installation…

Soul of Nations, a Washington, D.C. and Arizona-based nonprofit that works to uplift Indigenous communities throughout the Americas, presents this juried exhibition of Native teen artists from Southwest reservations. The 15 featured artists all took part in the organization’s Brea Foley Art Program, which awarded three of them with a special residency at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. The exhibition opens on the weekend of SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market and offers boundary-pushing aesthetic statements from a…

Santa Fe artist Matthew Mullins presents a solo exhibition of paintings, photographs and sculptures, inspired by the intrinsic links between humans and the natural world. Known for his mixed-media paintings that visually connect landscapes with human-made, geometric patterns, Mullins broadens his practice to encompass photography and sculpture. With this expanded artistic palette, he draws viewers across time and space—from a windswept patch of grass to the swirling cosmos. The monumental body of work, which will fill form & concept’s ground…

form & concept presents Hand/Eye, an exhibition of ten artists from across the United States who merge photography and craft mediums. The artworks in the show incorporate a wide array of materials—fiber, cast glass, micaceous clay, human hair—that shatter the picture plane and push photographic imagery into the real world. Hand/Eye debuts Friday, October 26 from 5 to 7 pm and runs through December 31, 2018. The opening reception coincides with the Last Friday Art Walk in the Santa Fe…

Santa Fe artist Armond Lara hosts a closing reception for his Flying Blue Buffalo installation on Saturday, November 17 from 5 to 7 pm. Lara collaborated with form & concept on this monumental art installation that tells the centuries-long story of enslaved Native American children. Inspired by his own family history, Lara dreamed up the winged buffalo as a new symbol of Native survival and resilience.

Join Matthew Mullins at a closing reception for his solo exhibition The Sun In Our Bones on Saturday, November 17 from 5 to 7 pm. His work will span form & concept’s ground floor, the second exhibition in the gallery’s two-year history to devote an entire level to a single artist. The title of the exhibition is a reference to an unconventional material Mullins has incorporated into some of his cosmic paintings: pigment made from burnt animal bones. “The calcium…

While artists from our 2018 programming pare their work down to 8 x 10 inches in our Microcosm exhibition, our jewelry artists will undertake a more expansive challenge. For its first annual Macrocosm group exhibition, form & concept invites jewelers to create oversized, wearable art to exhibit in our atrium, for a showcase of large-scale jewelry and small-scale art. This bricolage of styles and materials embodies the gallery's innovative mission.

Nika Feldman unveils a series of seven garment-like works along with accompanying objects of adornment, made from recycled t-shirt parts and salvaged aluminum can pull-tabs. Representing over 2,000 hours of handwork by the Nova Scotia artist, the intricate pieces are inspired by the coded language of clothing. “It’s an attempt to create a new dialect,” Feldman says. “In today’s world what does contemporary clothing say about North American culture?” Spirits in the Material World debuts with a special reception on…

Lisa Klakulak presents Since Taos: Contraction of Mass, Concision of Thought. The solo exhibition of 13 felt-based sculptures was created over a period of nearly two decades, since the freewheeling artist moved away from Taos, New Mexico in 2001. The collection simultaneously acts as a vivid portrait of Klakulak’s emotional journey and manifestation of her unique way of processing the world through fiber creations. “Like any piece of art you make, you are releasing an idea into the object,” Klakulak…

Albuquerque artist Ryan Singer unveils a solo exhibition of acrylic paintings of Navajo Nation landscapes populated by cultural icons. The artist’s vivid imagery showcases original narratives inspired by dreams and childhood memories while interweaving subtle socio-political commentary. “My older sister was really into sci-fi. If she wanted to see a movie, she had to drag me along,” says Albuquerque painter Ryan Singer. “I remember watching Star Wars, Godzilla, and old black-and-white movies like Frankenstein or The Mummy.” Pretty soon, the…

Ryan Singer hosts a closing reception for his solo exhibition, Childhood Mythologies, on Friday, May 24 from 5 to 7 pm. Childhood Mythologies showcases original narratives inspired by dreams and childhood memories while interweaving subtle sociopolitical commentary. For Singer, the exhibition is an opportunity to showcase his paintings on a larger scale. Although the theme of Childhood Mythologies offered Singer the opportunity to touch on social issues, the artist is purposefully withholding commentary or explanation. “The paintings are different parts…

Susan Beiner returns to form & concept for a solo exhibition featuring a large-scale, modular installation. The wall sculptures will feature Beiner’s characteristic floral forms, a porcelain garden of tactile blooms with allusions to architectural structures. Though it reads as one unit, each piece will be a unique work, showcasing Beiner’s vocabulary of encrusted forms. “The installation will be encrusted and glazed in different ways,” Beiner explains. “There’s a pattern, but the surface will bring variation to a large scale.”…

Every summer since its founding in 2016, form & concept has invited its dynamic team of represented artists to come together for a group exhibition of new works. Each show unites local and far-flung creative voices in a conversation about art, craft and design. form & concept seeks to examine the conceptual lines drawn between such broad categories, and how these distinctions reflect cultural attitudes toward gender, race, and class. In its short history, form & concept has curated a…

“It started with a community of makers who wanted to create in a radical new way,” says Marissa Saneholtz, one of the co-founders of the Smitten Forum. Every year since 2014, Marissa Saneholtz and Sara Brown have invited a new group of jewelers and metalsmiths to work side-by-side in a communal studio for a week. Over six years, the forum expanded in numbers and geographic area to encompass over 70 artists in several states. Call it a mobile artist colony,…

"I like challenging perceptions of an object, or how we create hierarchies of format,” says metalsmith Bryan Petersen. Art is constantly in flux—different mediums fall in and out of favor, dropping and adding qualifiers like “wearable” or “sculptural.” While earrings, necklaces, and brooches have ascended to artwork status, the belt buckle has been largely overlooked. In response, Petersen founded the World Champion Belt Buckle Competition. Since its founding in 2012, the competition has sought to upend outdated stereotypes. Utilizing the…

After a banner year, Santa Fe artist Heidi Brandow debuts a new series of whimsical characters and monsters on a large scale. “I knew from an early age that our native identity is so rich that we shouldn’t just hold it to a specific ceremony or spiritual practice,” says Santa Fe artist Heidi Brandow. “In my eyes, art is a tool that helps mark history, time, place, and memory. Who’s to say pop culture is not equally as important as…