Holly Roberts and Wanxin Zhang: Reconstruction

Both Holly Roberts and Wanxin Zhang reconstruct reality by repurposing it. Roberts, one of New Mexico’s most influential contemporary artists, photographs nature and elements of our physical world. She doesn’t re-present the imagery she photographs; she constructs entirely new images using magnified tiny areas of texture and form. While her images are undeniably residential in her personal interior world, they evoke “memory” or “connection” in all of us, because we recognize something oddly familiar in them. Sometimes an enlarged photograph of tiny strands of hair becomes an enlarged mass of texture; twisted vines become arteries; and body parts are re-combined into an entirely new being. Often, Roberts places elements of nature within the human body, reminding us of our evolution from the natural world. Roberts’ works will be simultaneously exhibited at the New Mexico Museum of Art through September 11, 2016, as part of Self-Regard: Artist Self-Portraits from the Collection.

The terra cotta warriors found in Xian, buried near Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, largely influence Zhang, a Chinese artist. When he first saw these warriors that protected the burial site of the emperor, he was struck by the individuality displayed in every single sculpture. The fact that the artists took such great care to give different human attributes to each warrior, lent reverence to their task. Zhang sees his “warriors” as contemporary man and woman. He imbues each of them with symbols indicating contemporary life-- spectacles, binoculars, and skateboards. He uses the same techniques with his clay and glazes, as the artist’s millennia ago, thereby referencing the past while making a statement about contemporary life. Zhang’s works have been shown in museums throughout the United States and Asia