Artist A Nigh Herndon is acutely aware that his work clashes with the rest of Canyon Road. Over the course of his career, Herndon’s palette has dwindled to mostly shades of gray, and his new body of work incorporates industrial materials like window screens and acoustic panels. For his upcoming solo show, Designs x Devices, opening at the new Beals & Co. Showroom (830 Canyon Road, 357-0441) this Saturday, he’s building his own synthesizer to present some of his latest sound art.
"I have absolutely no idea how people are going to react to this show," says Herndon, who is originally from Tulsa and moved here from Guadalajara, Mexico, in May. Fortunately, the artist has one of Santa Fe's most innovative art dealers on his side. Herndon's experimental cacophony may clash with the turquoise jewelry on Canyon Road, but it's just another workday for Bobby Beals.
Beals is a fifth-generation Santa Fean and lived in Los Angeles for a number of years before returning home and working his way up in the art community. Beals & Abbate Fine Art, his joint venture with Anthony Abbate, closed in 2013. In the final days of that space, Beals began experimenting with guerrilla marketing techniques. He heavily promoted his artists through social media and collaborated with local DJs and chefs to turn art openings into wild parties.
After leaving the traditional gallery model behind, Beals pushed the envelope even further. "I came up with this idea to do mobile pop-up shows around town," he says. Several prominent hotels got involved, filling their walls with local, contemporary art devoid of cowboys and sunsets. "It was pure hustle," Beals says. "Even just moving the art itself into and out of spaces is quite a feat."
Now Beals is back on Canyon Road, in a brick-and-mortar gallery. His move might seem like a step backward, but the Beals & Co. Showroom is no ordinary gallery. Beals offers his stable of 75 artists complete curatorial control within the space. One at a time, they'll mount solo exhibitions that serve as definitive artistic statements. At the close of each show, Beals will continue to showcase the work online and in his pop-ups at the Drury Hotel, Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado and other businesses around town. Through an umbrella business called Santa Fe Exports, he'll launch their work into other markets around the world.
"I want artists to be proud to show on Canyon Road—and not just artists who are making landscapes," says Beals. "I feel like this road hasn't changed much since I left. It needs a little spicing up." Herndon is the third local artist to exhibit in the Beals & Co. Showroom since it opened on May 1, following shows by Allison Kunath and David Santiago. Beals discovered Herndon's work through Instagram, sparking a three-year friendship that eventually motivated Herndon to take up residence here. His new body of work for Designs x Devices weaves together media and ideas that he has explored throughout his career.
"For the first time ever, I'm including a sound art installation with visual art," says Herndon. "I actually feel like the two compliment each other, which is new." He's been making sound art since his childhood in the 1980s, when he and his brother secretly recorded and remixed his family's Thanksgiving dinner one year. As a young adult, he helped build Tulsa's underground punk rock and skating scene, and made street art on train cars. Herndon moved to Guadalajara last year to make an album with a Mexican record label, and he continued to create and exhibit visual art. Minimalism and post-minimalism are major influences in his work, though he spent a few years making portraits as well. "In your late 20s and early 30s, it's easy to not do what you want," says Herndon. "If you're working outside the representational world, it's really easy to dip back in because you think you'll sell more pieces."
In Designs x Devices, Herndon uses familiar building materials to conjure memories and feelings of the "home." He examines how the mundane substances that make up our dwellings physically and emotionally cradle us. In a series of mixed media diptychs, enamel, fiberglass and aluminum engage with digital pigment prints of shadowy faces and graphite abstractions. The works hint at murky memories of long-lost environments. Freckled acoustic tiles (just like the ones on the ceiling of your high school) interact with the sound art in the room by absorbing its echoes.
"People now tell me I'm afraid of color, but that's not it at all," says Herndon. "To actually quiet yourself is a difficult thing. If you want to relate it to sound art, it's about breaking it down to the actual emotional levels of micro sound, just these little snippets. Get a snippet of an idea in your mind, and actually let that fully transform into a piece."
Whether you're creating an artwork or an art space, that's sound advice.
Designs x Devices Opening Reception
5-7 pm Saturday, June 18. Free.
Beals & Co. Showroom,
830 Canyon Road
357-0441
Santa Fe Reporter