Santa Fe, NM  May 24 – June 2, 2024, opening reception Friday May 24, 5-7pm.

Materiality presents Psycho-Bio-Sphere: Paintings by naturalist and artist Oliver Polzin. The exhibition will include paintings in a range of sizes created over the last 2 years.

The paintings, which are gouache on panel, are multi-layered explorations into natural worlds, both familar and exotic. The imagery is at once mysterious but at the same time offering up a sense of a memory lost, or not quite yet made. Each piece presents an invitation to delve into a narrative that circles around the secret life of soil, and of trees, or perhaps the “animate mycilium acting out mythic stories.”

As with all of the artists exhibiting at Materiality, Polzin’s painting media/material helps inform his imagination. The opaque viscosity of the water media brings a rich dimension to his subject matter. Polzin has an uncanny ability to make the pigment-heavy qualities of gouache paint actually glow.

“I make art to devote attention to the psycho-bio-sphere. My obsessive and devotional layering is a process both chaotic and careful, akin to divination. I seek novel forms and combinations to entrance and delight the viewer, compelling them to linger in unexpected places. I want a painting to be a whole body experience, to draw a person in from across the room to one nose-length away.”

Please join us for a reception with the artist Friday, May 24th from 5 to 7 pm.