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This story is currently featured
in the October 2019 issue of
Southwest Art magazine.
Sensual Surface and Volume: Sculpture by
Mark Yale Harris + Paintings by Dick Evans
SENSUAL SURFACE and Volume, the title of the two-person show featured this month at Ventana Fine Art on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, serves as more than just a poetic evocation of the works on display. In fact, those words accurately, physically describe both the enthralling abstract paintings of Dick Evans and the seductively curvilinear forms of sculpture by Mark Yale Harris. Both artists are present for the opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday, October 4, with more than 20 recent pieces from each of them on display.
Evans, who lives and works in Santa Fe, came to painting through a prodigious art career that has also embraced ceramics, bronze, and welded steel, and his works in all mediums can be found in the collections of 17 museums and more than a dozen corporations. Though many of his recent images may bring landscapes to mind, he considers them to be familiar visual “triggers that put the viewer in a space that allows them to enter a deeper consciousness.” Indeed, says Evans about such beneficially altered states, “people have told me over and over that after having seen my paintings, they view the world differently.” Whether he’s creating a 90-inch-wide triptych like Twenty-Fifth Passage or one of the three 30-inch-square works that share the title Valen-Tine, his goal is to convey both physical and emotional power through his luscious brush strokes.
Such a high level of impact also results from viewing the sculptures of Mark Yale Harris, who’s based in Carbondale, CO. He creates often-massive sculptures of human and animal forms from stones like alabaster, marble, granite, and limestone, then he casts them in bronze. “I attempt to express emotion,” says the artist. “That’s a simple word that can mean anything from love and affection to anxiety, from enthusiasm and awareness to hiding from reality, from celebration to humor.” Such range is present in his three versions of a 7-inch-high bronze bear cub, collectively labeled Little Worries, each with a different patina. “A collector could put their bear on a pillow and turn it and change the position of the sculpture to express their feelings for the day,” says Harris. His Crush, by contrast, began as a carving in translucent orange alabaster of a man and woman kneeling in close embrace; it has gone on to become a massive 5-foot-high bronze exhibited in public and private collections, like many of Harris’ works. That’s no small achievement for a man who came to sculpture after a highly successful career as a hotelier and then went on to train under two artists he admired, Bill Prokopiof and Doug Hyde, themselves both protégés of renowned sculptor Allan Houser.
Viewed together, the two artists’ works will no doubt achieve a powerful synergy, each man’s creative vision perfectly comple-menting that of the other.
—Norman Kolpas
Join us for the opening reception October 4, from 5 to 7 p.m. Mark Yale Harris and Dick Evans will be in attendance. The show runs through October 14, 2019 with representation ongoing.
Ventana Fine Art, 400 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 (505) 983-8815 www.ventanafineart.com
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