UN-KNOWN PATHS

OCTOBER 14 – NOVEMBER 13, 2022

NEW WORK BY CHRISTY HENGST

Christy Hengst is perhaps best known in Santa Fe for her sculptural wax with porcelain paintings shown in galleries and museums in the 2000’s, and her many public art projects, including three bus stops, two haiku trails, Same Boat, and the traveling public art project ‘birds in the park’. Delving back into painting, Hengst draws on 35+ years of art making for this body of work, layering a wealth of materials and techniques, including oil, charcoal, wax, porcelain, collage, drawing, serigraphy, and photopolymer gravure.

Un-known Paths explores themes of pathways, stillness, and listening. Developing from decades of hiking the land around Santa Fe, many of the paintings cluster around specific paths (Sun Mountain, Aspen Vista, Chamisa Trail) or specific plants encountered along the way (yucca, mullein, piñon). Hengst gathers material and field research in the form of drawings, writing, and photography.

As much as this work is about specific places, it’s also about returning to a place of not-knowing, and building intimacy through renewed curiosity. A meditation cushion sits facing the painting in Hengst’s studio. When unsure what comes next, she sits and listens — as she says, it’s a conversation. In Un-known Paths, Hengst explores seeing and creating with a fresh eye.

Thoughts on meditation also create content in the work, literally. Ripped selections of zen books, as well as Hengst’s own written notes, form the foundations for many of the paintings. The text often becomes obscured by drawing and painting. Nevertheless, the text – chewed, swallowed, and transmuted – becomes an important layer in the character of these pieces.

In addition to the paintings, Un-Known Paths will host a new flock of porcelain birds that have been born as companions and counterpoint to the two-dimensional work. Related to the birds from ‘birds in the park’, these sculptural pieces carry cobalt imagery and text informed by the paintings.