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SIT.PLAY. - Paintings by Tom Berg, Toys by Kristin Lora, and Chairs We Love opens with a 5-7 p.m. reception Thursday, June 28, 2007, at Victoria Price Art & Design, 1512 Pacheco St., Building B, at Pacheco Park in Santa Fe, N.M. The exhibit closes Saturday, July 21. For information call 982-8632.
"The concept for this show began with Tom Berg's exquisite realist paintings of chairs, and the desire to pair them with real chairs,'' said gallery director Hollis Walker. ``It had so much potential for whimsy it seemed only logical to include Kristin Lora's amazingly creative toys.''
Tom Berg has been painting empty chairs as his primary still-life subject matter since 1977. Working in oil on canvas and on panel, Berg has made some hundreds of paintings of chairs - in his studio, on his lawn, and elsewhere in rural and urban landscapes - yet has not tired of them.
"I'm very suspicious of exotic objects and settings,'' Berg notes. "Chairs are something the viewer knows intimately, but a painting of a chair allows the viewer to know the object in a different way.''
This exhibition of 25 new works will include paintings large and small of Adirondack chairs, folding wooden chairs, plastic lawn chairs, wing chairs, wicker porch chairs, and two not-so-obvious chairs: a tractor and Berg's personal favorite, the Italian-made road bicycle on which he logs 5,000 miles a year. Berg occasionally paints other objects that intrigue him, and some of those works also will be included in the exhibit.
Berg lives in Nambé, just north of Santa Fe, N.M.
Kristin Lora is a full-time metalsmith who makes small, whimsical sculptural toys that are hand-fabricated of sterling silver and feature semiprecious gems and miniature people and dogs. Her toys include airplanes, music boxes, Airstream-like trailers, cars and aliens - all crafted smaller than four inches square. While it's unlikely that Lora's toys - which are truly art objects - will be played with, they can be; almost all of them have mechanical parts, such as car and trailer doors that open and close and planes fitted with working wheels and props.
"I've always been fascinated with the miniature,'' Lora says. She also enjoys the mental challenge of mechanics and structure. "I don't draw them before I make them; I work out all the mechanisms in my head.'' Lora will exhibit 30 sculptural toys and pieces of sculptural toy jewelry, which includes the "Commuter Train" series of necklaces and bracelets, with miniature plastic people. Her jewelry is shown on a regular basis at Victoria Price Art & Design.
Lora's toys have been included in numerous museum and gallery shows and appeared in exhibition catalogues and magazines. In 2005 and 2006, she received purchase awards for the permanent collection of the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation in Little Rock. Lora is scheduled to appear on an upcoming episode of the HGTV program "That's Clever."
Lora is a Santa Fe resident.
Chairs We Love will include fun and functional chairs ranging from found-metal sculptural chairs by artists Tom Emerson of Santa Fe and Leroy Archuleta of Albuquerque to designer chairs from Italian manufacturers.