Events

Fechin House Store

Saturday, October 10th
Meet the Artist Series at theTaos Art Museum at Fechin House Store

Nude Awakening at Gaucho Blue Fine Art Gallery in Peñasco; opening reception July 9th, 2022 from 4pm.

Words: Jada Griffin

Nick Beason, printmaker and Lise Poulsen, fiber artist, founded Gaucho Blue Gallery in 2009. From the beginning, they have provided exposure for artists whose works they deem to innovate, challenge and bridge the boundary between the traditional and the avant-garde.

Gaucho Blue artists Jean Nichols, Gerd Bianga and Jada Griffin sat down with Nick and Lise before the pandemic. No one had any idea that it would be over two years before their embryonic musings for a proposed show, Nude Awakening which opens July 9th., 2022 in Peñasco, could gel into reality.

In July of 2020, Gaucho Blue was headlined as a “New York” - style gallery by Virginia Clark in her article titled “Success Story” for the Taos News. In the 2016 Arts Section of Rio Grande Sun, Robert Eckert identified Gaucho Blue as “a small, sophisticated, rural gallery that lives life on the edge.” Living on the edge is Gaucho Blue at its heart. Nick Beason and Lise Poulsen continue to promote the work of artists who challenge the status quo. Artists Jean Nichols, Gerd Bianga and Jada Griffin are not only avant-garde artists, but they also form part of a historic art community, some of whose members are dedicated to a creative energy that calls into question myths and clichés which have become enshrined in the popular imagination.

The drive along the legendary High Road to Taos is dramatic. If the mountainous journey through Indigenous lands and the colonial remnants of New Spain weren’t enough, a visit to Gaucho Blue to view Nude Awakening promises to be an equally sensational destination.

Jean Nichols was drawn to Taos county in the 1960s in search of creative freedom. Nichols remains a painter committed to values typical, not only of Northern New Mexico during this era, but also of Paris’ Left Bank in the early 20th. century. The women of the Left Bank knew that choice is an essential component of fulfillment. In renouncing social convention, they created their own lives and practiced independence in their pursuit of intellectual and artistic interests. In doing so they changed the course of art history.

Experiencing the paintings of Jean Nichols, it becomes apparent that what matters to this artist is the vitality and freshness of her work. Her nude figures are pure passion concentrated to the point of reality on paper. Always in movement, they deny the straight line. They take on a playful fluidity arising from Nichols’ intuitive approach to painting. Many things seem broken in this uncertain time. Jean Nichols’ art delights the viewer with an alternative paradigm.

Long-time Taos resident, Gerd Bianga, born in Germany, has created a diverse body of imaginative and unique work that reaches from sculpture and earth art into conceptual minimalism and figurative painting. Bianga also has an ardent interest in screen printing, often making images of irreverent humor that incite curiosity in the viewer. When asked why he creates art, Gerd Bianga says, “Well, I have to. It’s not only one of my greatest pleasures to create, paint, draw, sculpt or print, it is completely necessary to fulfill my hungry mind. It takes care of my soul and uplifts me to do so.” Bianga’s work pushes the boundaries of creativity. His desire is to inspire the mind and spirit with new angles and perspectives which are wholly original.

Gerd Bianga says that a few of his paintings of male and female figures are purposely erotic. Although perceptions of what is erotic in art is subjective and dependent upon its context, many people may have a visceral response to some of Bianga’s works that holds sexual voltage. Bianga explores the carnal through a stream of art that began in the Paleolithic age and moved through such early 20th century movements as Cubism, Futurism, and German Expressionism. Both the nude and the erotic nude are examined through multiple viewpoints and color, bringing these investigations forward to today.

For an artist to write about herself is a rare privilege. I have lived in England, Chile, Algeria, France, Switzerland and Spain and am a graduate of Sotheby Parke-Bernet, the auction house, in London. My background is both in art history and studio painting. A few years into owning my own gallery and painting studio in Portland, Oregon, I moved from abstract into female-figurative work, inspired by a mesmerizingly magical watercolor created by a friend. My effort is to make beautiful, living, breathing pictures absent of conventional, over-engineered meaning. Each woman is a fully self-contained universe disinterested in what she should or should not be, faithful only to herself. All through history, images of women have been created by men for men. The art world has kept women in their place by proscribing the subjects of their gaze. In my works, the observed becomes the observer and there is strength in sorority. More than anything, my hope is that my paintings are an affirmation of personal and collective freedom, freedom centered in a generosity, respect and tenderness toward all existence that only true liberty brings.

Nude Awakening opening reception is Saturday, July 9th. from 4pm. Show runs through Sunday, August 7th. Gaucho Blue gallery: 14148 State Road 75, Peñasco, NM 87553. Phone, (575) 587-1076  www.gauchoblue.com

Red Bar Nebula, 8’ x 10’ Diptych

Podcast Interview with the Artist