PAPER/GLASS/METAL

Beginning on January 9, 2008, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, at 435 South Guadalupe Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico will present “Paper/Glass/Metal”, an exhibition combining three different media by Santa Fe artists James Perigord (paper) and Stephen Auger (glass), and Canadian artist, Ed Zelenak (metal). There will be a reception for the artists on Friday, January 9, 2008, from 5-7 pm, and the show continues through February 28, 2009.

James Perigord, a classically trained artist who has been making work since the 1950s, has been creating minimal paintings, collages and collage-decollages over the course of his 17 years living in Santa Fe. Perigord's collage-decollages will be the focus of his portion of this show. They are made by gluing white paper onto black canvas with gesso, and tearing the paper away as the collage dries. Perigord says that he “takes advantage of 'accidents' to create black and white forms that conjure up unexpected images and result in a satisfactory composition”. Perigord's process of 'creation/destruction' that he uses in these collage-decollages is a transformative one, which allows for the personal to become universal.

Stephen Auger, also a resident of Santa Fe, creates his pieces from paint and reflective glass spheres. His paintings have tiny glass spheres poured slowly over them allowing the slow movement of liquid to leave patterns. Auger's paintings form themselves through the same processes that produce textures and patterns in nature. Auger, who studied at M.I.T., has been interested in the perception of color and the physics of light since the mid-seventies. His paintings absorb and reflect light, and the colors appear to retreat from the surface, or project themselves closer to one's eye. “The experience of painting and viewing my work is about sensing. I think about the space in between breaths, a moment when we are neither inhaling nor exhaling, a moment of stillness. For me that moment expresses the very essence of living, it is a portal of awareness that constantly brings me back to this moment”, Auger says.

Ed Zelenak, who has been sculpting and drawing since the mid-sixties, creates work in a formal reductivist language akin to the work of Carl Andre, David Rabinowitch and Richard Serra. Zelenak's sculptural works and relief constructions share, along with the work of these artists, an interest in conveying artistic meaning without concealing the brute physical qualities of their materials. Zelenak uses various metals (tin, lead, copper), along with paper, wood and graphite in his pieces. His work, however, differs from the strict formalism of traditional Minimalism, by conveying a self-reflective, allegorical quality. One recurring motif Zelenak uses is a divining rod, emblematic as a tool needed for discovery and orientation. “I gravitate to making art that is universal as opposed to codifying and interpreting current events through the eyes of the artist”, Zelenak says.

Selected images by James Perigord, Stephen Auger and Ed Zelenak are enclosed. Additional high resolution images and information are available from the gallery upon request.