Axle Contemporary
a mobile artspace based in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Upcoming mobile gallery schedule
Rick Phelps--Post Fiesta Wares--Opening in the Santa Fe Railyard, shade structure by Farmers Market, Friday, April 7, 5–7 pm
Rick Phelps
Post Fiesta Wares
an installation at Axle
Opening in the Santa Fe Railyard, shade structure by Farmers Market, Friday, April 7, 5–7 pm
Exhibition continues through May 28
Axle Contemporary is pleased to present Rick Phelps’ Post Fiesta Wares, an installation inside Axle’s mobile artspace. The exhibition is in conjunction with The Museum of International Folk Arts’ exhibition Cartoneria: The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste, and is supported by the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. F
rom April 7th through May 28th, Axle will be traveling to schools and community events around Santa Fe and beyond with MoIFA bi-lingual educator Kemely Gomez, engaging people with art-making and learning opportunities.
Phelps approach to art making is unpretentious, and both practical and wildly imaginative. As quoted in The New York Times: ''Farm people were resourceful, but we didn't call making things 'art' ''
He has exhibited and sold his artwork in art galleries, museums, and the World Financial Center, as well as in churches, bars, hair salons, nightclubs, restaurants, candy stores, and bathrooms.
He has a lifelong commitment to making work from materials-at-hand and the cast-off detritus of our out-of-balance society of consumption. He recycles paper, artistic conventions, and his self-proclaimed neuroses in an effort to order and reassemble his world.
All of Phelps' work is made of recycled papers, from hymnals, encyclopedias, menus, beer cartons, magazines, food labels, security envelope liners or junk mail, ephemera re-pulped and repurposed into dynamic sculptures.
His papier-maché and papier-collé sculptures draw on the traditional Mexican arts of Cartoneria and Piñata, but incorporate an ever-changing array of materials, references, and characters, drawing on Pop, Punk, Folk, Funk and other vernacular traditions.
His work is represented in Santa Fe by Pasqual’s Gallery, in Truchas by Eight Million Gods, and in Madrid by Calliope.
Scheduled Locations
April 15
Vital Spaces / Community Art Closet -SFUAD campus 11–2
April 22
Railyard Park for Earth Day events 10–2:30
April 28
Espanola Library 1–4 PM
May 5
NM Museum of Art Santa Fe Plaza 5–7pm
May 7
Museum of International Folk Art, Museum Hill Plaza 11–4
May 14
Family Morning-Museum of International Folk Art, Museum Hill Plaza 11–4
May 27
Southside Branch Library 11–1
Send us images and proposals, if you'd like to show at Axle.
works on paper, installation, performance
Axle Contemporary programming is supported by Axle Projects, Inc. Axle Projects is supported through individual donations, grants, and sponsorship from the City of Santa Fe's Arts & Culture Department.. This project is made possible in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Exhibitions in the Santa Fe Railyard are made possible through the support of The Railyard Art Project. If you are interested in supporting Axle Projects, visit the website here.
