In his artist’s statement for Winterstate, David Nakabayashi says the inspiration for his new stock of paintings is a near-death experience: a wintry car accident that left him stranded on the side of the road in Ohio. These kinds of stories can represent truly life-altering moments that catalyze a personal re-evaluation.

The simultaneous photogrphy exhibitions at Zane Bennett Contemporary Art and Skotia Gallery oppose one another in nearly every way. In doing so, they trace the divergent paths contemporary photography has taken since the embrace of digital technology.

Vanishing Points marks the launch of LewAllen Projects with a curated group exhibition in the gallery’s Railyard location. The man behind the curtain is Alex Ross, an employee of LewAllen and a sometime art critic.

My relationship with Ansel Adams, to use the current parlance, is complicated. One cannot deny his technical mastery. He literally wrote the book—several, actually—on darkroom photography. So what is it about him that sort of gets on my nerves?

It took Christopher Benson 25 years to graduate from art school. After leaving in 1982, he returned to the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004 and completed the final year of his program to receive a BFA in painting.

Every town has a biographer, and painter Jerry West comes by the role of Santa Fe’s biographer naturally. Over dinner, the entirety of our conversation revolved around the history and geography of New Mexico. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of history and lineage.

I need to confess something: I don’t usually go for abstract painting. In the course of history, the rejection of illusionism (the attempt to make a painted object appear real) seems important but, at some point between Yves Klein and Robert Ryman, it feels like the ship bottomed out.  If I’m not careful, I end up in conversations about irreducibility and flatness, which are really just fancy ways to describe wallpaper.

Collage may be the most relevant medium for contemporary culture. The cutting up and repurposing of discarded and obsolete print media is the artist’s version of recycling and sustainability. It reflects thriftiness, a clever way to pinch pennies in a time of job instability and tightened belts. But collage also is a distillation of the way we consume information in pieces and without much context.

Telephone is a moralistic game; it serves as a warning not to believe everything one hears. It spells out the danger of spreading rumors and the importance of checking one’s sources. Though it is only a game, telephone clearly articulates the difference between what is said and what is heard.

My favorite exhibitions are the ones that transform reality so that I feel less like I’m in a gallery looking at a picture and more like I’m inside someone’s skull and the artwork is the embodiment of their ideas. John Tinker’s immersive solo is like walking into Willy Wonka’s laboratory, with its blend of fantastical foods, dangerous toys and mischief.