July 20-September 1
OPENING RECEPTION:
Saturday July 20, 4 – 6 pm
Wright Contemporary
627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur
Taos, New Mexico
Interest in figurative art comes and goes down through the decades, but in the case of these three artists, all in their seventies, it never really went away. Bob Richardson favors a straightforward realism, with hints of the Old Masters, and occasional humorous notes, as in his naked self-portrait at work on an oversized canvas or his camera-crazed tourists. Ian Ratowsky, who lives in Mallorca, Spain, operates in a dreamy zone that incorporates magic realism and what he calls a “nonformulary approach to female portraiture.” In her drawings in the Wright Office, Greta Young shows body parts on a collision course with other anatomical detritus, highlighted by broadly brushed areas of color. These bits and pieces of struggling humanity are comic, but they also seem somewhat desperate and doomed.
BOB RICHARDSON
IAN RATOWSKY
GRETA YOUNG
In the Project Space are new abstract ceramics from Erik Gellert, who says he is inspired by his day job as a technician at Santa Fe Community College, where he uses a “machine to extrude tubular forms into a mold with spectacularly random results.” With an emphasis on “spectacular.”
THE WRIGHT CONTEMPORARY
627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur
Taos, New Mexico
The Wright Contemporary is a gallery in Taos, NM, dedicated primarily to the artists of northern New Mexico.
Named for the late Ira Wright, a Santa Fe-based artist and benefactor, the gallery offers approximately eight shows per year, curated by art journalist and director Ann Landi and artist Michelle Cooke. Our debut exhibition was “Explosive Abstraction,” which closed in August of 2022. Next on the agenda was “Taos Draws!,” a round-up of draftsmen (and women) from the area in the main galleries, followed by “New Geometries,” and “Photography in Black and White.” In 2023, the Wright presented “Botanicals,” the work of Parisian-based installation artist Isabelle Plat, a survey of works by Tom Martinelli and Phillis Ideal, and a mini-retrospective for Ira Wright,
In The Wright Office and The Project Space, we have featured works by Zoe Zimmerman, Helen Gene Nichols, Rebecca Crowell, Desiree Manville, and Olga Brava.
Complementing the exhibitions is a roster of lectures and programs. In our first year, Gwen Chanzit, curator emerita of the Denver Art Museum, gave an illustrated lecture on the origins of abstraction, while Jason Andrew, from Artist Estate Management LLC, spoke to a full house about getting your affairs in order before you travel to that great studio in the sky (a video of this talk is available on YouTube). An “Evening with Larry Bell,” also on YouTube, investigated the myriad aspects of the artist’s long and stellar career) and during the Taos Fall Arts Festival, Marcie Begleiter was on hand to screen her landmark documentary Eva Hesse, with a discussion about the making of the film afterward. Other speakers have included with Louis Grachos, director of SITE Santa Fe and David Chickey, publisher of Radius Books. The gallery regularly offers talks and conversations with artist exhibited on site.
The Wright Contemporary is located at 627 Paseo del Pueblo Sur in Taos, New Mexico. It’s on the main route leading to the downtown historic district, with ample parking around the gallery. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 2 to 6 p.m. But we are sometimes closed for installations, so it’s always wise to call in advance.