Upon walking into 516 Arts, visitors are greeted by a gigantic collage of a lobster.
Artist Miriam Wosk made three big collages on paper that hang down like scrolls from the gallery's top wall as part of the show "Alchemy."
"They're probably the show-stoppers," program coordinator Rhiannon Mercer said. "You're hit with the most colorful and intricately put together, most labor-intensive of the other works in the show, but you really have to see it to make that judgment call. The lobster itself is not red, but everything around it is red. It's surrounded by foliage and crystals."
"Alchemy," a collage and assemblage exhibition running through May 31, features the work of contemporary New Mexican artists as well as artists from across the country.
Collage has a rich history, and it has been gaining ground as a legitimate art genre.
"The Dada movement is the thematic basis for the show," educational coordinator Bryan
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Kaiser said. "Harkening back to the collage that came out of Dada, collage lends itself to that tradition."
The artists featured in "Alchemy" use a range of materials, including found objects and pop-culture images. The works include two-dimensional collage, three-dimensional assemblage and seven collage films curated by Bryan Konefsky of Basement Films.
"Some of the artists are more focused on cutting up and others more on assembling, but all find their own unique balance on the spectrum of destruction and creation," curator Suzanne Sbarge said.
"Alchemy" features the sculpture "Reliquary Ship" by Andrea Volkoff-Senutovitch, a self-taught artist working with three-dimensional assemblage, sculpture and photography. The ship is delicate yet sturdy, with a solid base. The sails are made from X-ray sheets. It's like a wayward traveler floating on the gallery floor.
Local artist Holly Roberts has some pieces in the show called "Snake Boy" and "Snake Girl." They have black and white snakes for arms and legs and snakes slithering up their torsos.
"You're looking at this odd kid made up of snakes, and he's walking on a world that's a very hard world," Roberts said. "Snakes are hard - they're scary - but this kid's smiling. Why is he smiling?"
She uses snakes because they invoke fear and wonder in people.
"They're beautiful, just incredible things," she said. "They really bother people a lot. They're this weird combination of beauty and grace. You can get a snake and put it in a room, and that room will clear out in two seconds. It doesn't matter if it's a little garter snake."
Tony Fitzpatrick, a Chicago artist, made pieces that focus on post-Katrina New Orleans. In "The Mercy Seat," a 9x6 collage on handmade paper, the text is the image. The image uses religious reference as well as different advertisements. The background, a combination of music notes, extended hands, dice and cards coupled with the strong use of text, has a narrative quality.
The back of the gallery has a viewing space for the international collection of collage films, including one by the late Joseph Cornell - the only film he made.
