SANTA FE IS ONLY one of many geographic entry points to get to know and collect New Mexico art. Across the state, these galleries and venues are creating buzz while changing perceptions of a diverse artistic landscape. 

 

SANTA FE

Just five years old, Smoke the Moon has breathed new energy into Santa Fe’s historic Canyon Road. Specializing in emerging regional artists, the gallery has also become a player on the larger scene by participating in high-profile fairs such as Untitled Art Miami Beach and the New York Armory Show. Associate director Emma Ziman says a big part of Smoke the Moon’s mission is as “a gathering place for art and ideas,” which adds up to an approachable and even fun environment for newer collectors. WHAT TO SEE: Gallery artist Diego Medina guest-curates a show of contemporary Indigenous artists, on view through September 22.

A gallery room displays sculptures and colorful landscape paintings beneath a decorative chandelier. Photograph by Kate Russell.

Just off the Santa Fe Plaza, Cyndi Woodall-Hall has run the bustling Manitou Galleries for nine years. Inside, her husband, Tsali Hall, runs Palace Jewelers, which specializes in contemporary and classic Native jewelry. “What excites us most is continuing to champion artists whose work contributes to the evolving story of the American West,” says Cyndi, who is of Japanese and Cherokee descent and continues to focus on presenting Indigenous viewpoints. Muscogee Creek painter Starr Hardridge recently joined a lineup of Native artists including Nocona Burgess (Comanche), Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota/Diné), Ed Natiya (Diné), and Isaiah Stewart (Lakota/Mohawk). Tsali’s own line of bolo ties is a vehicle for his pop-culture fascinations: One set is made from hood ornaments from 1950s Pontiac Chieftains; another line uses vintage Gumby and Pokey collectibles. “Every piece carries a story,” he says. WHAT TO SEE: A two-person show with Kenneth Peloke and James Randle opens in September.

Robert King at Duende Gallery. Photograph by Tira Howard.

GALISTEO 

Although Galisteo has been home to artists Fritz Scholder and Agnes Martin, as well as the critic Lucy Lippard, one thing the village never had was a gallery—until Duende Gallery. Housed in one of northern New Mexico’s oldest dance halls, Duende is the forward-thinking brainchild of ceramic artist Robert King (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) and Jaime Herrell (Cherokee Nation), with a mission centered on Native art. “Galisteo gives us something increasingly rare: space, quiet, and time,” King says. “People arrive with fewer distractions, stay longer, and engage more deeply with the work and with one another.” Herrell adds, “What I keep coming back to is that these are not small conversations happening in a major art market. They’re happening right here in Galisteo.” WHAT TO SEE: Duende collaborates with UNM’s renowned Tamarind Institute for Marking the Margin, on display through November, with artists including Harmony Hammond and Rose B. Simpson.

Lapis Room is a folk-art destination. Photograph by Kate Russell.

ALBUQUERQUE

Laura Houghton, founder and creative director of Lapis Room, had a vision that contemporary regional art from emerging and mid-career artists could flourish in Old Town Albuquerque. Five years in, she’s built the gallery into a place where street art meets New Mexico folk art traditions and the greater contemporary Southwest. “We are proud to find our place dancing between rich traditional arts and thought-provoking contemporary concepts,” Houghton says. Lapis Room is also branching out with a recent curatorial collaboration on the Blue Wall art space at nearby Flyby Provisions; they’re also guiding periodic exhibitions with community projects like Fusion and OffCenter Arts. What to see: Houghton says September and October’s Folk Art & Flower Altar Show is “designed to celebrate folk art as a universal language.”

Parsons Fine Art specializes in the classics. Photograph by Gabriella Marks.

TAOS

Smart and comprehensive, classic and eclectic, Parsons Fine Art, run by Ashley Rolshoven and her father, Robert Parsons, specializes in work by the Taos Society of Artists and the Early Taos Art Colony. Paintings by Ernest Blumenschein, W. Herbert Dunton, and Walter Ufer grace the walls of the gallery, while its sister location, Parsons Gallery of the West, is home to emerging Western visionaries such as Chloe Marie, Brett Allen Johnson, Roseta Santiago, Drew Macias, and Nathanael Volckening. Together, Parsons is a visual repository for art created in Taos from about 1914 to the present. “It is incredibly rewarding to help share the stories behind the art we represent while contributing to the vibrant artistic legacy that continues to make Taos such a special place,” Rolshoven says. WHAT TO SEE: Parsons and Parsons Gallery of the West present a small works show with all gallery artists, opening in early December.