Mountains & Sky

It is impossible to live in Santa Fe without falling a little bit in love with the mountains and sky. This winter, TAI Modern pays homage to these pillars of the high desert landscape with an exhibition of works from Japan and America that evoke or are inspired by the natural world.

Mountains and Sky brings together a selection of vessel makers, painters, and sculptors. The references to nature can be straightforward, as in Black Mesa, Linda Whitaker’s powerful oil-pastel of a local landscape, or more difficult to pinpoint, as in Hatakeyama Seido’s Mountain Range, a jar-shaped bamboo basket with a decorative knotted motif reminiscent of the titular forms.

“For me, inspiration comes from the workings of nature, both large and small, near and distant” Japanese sculptor Nagakura Kenichi wrote in 2016. “My desire is to share with other human beings the silent voice of nature.” His work Looking Through a Mountain Sky exemplifies the guiding themes of this exhibition, possessing both an earthy gravity and a form that seems to stretch skyward.