Curated by Patrick Kelly. 

Contemporary Mexican-American artist René Treviño has created an installation comprised of his own works alongside his personal selections from the OJAC's Pre-Columbian collection.

Utilizing extensive research of Mayan and other cultures' carvings, Treviño develops contemporary images and combines them with popular culture references. The OJAC installation incorporates Treviño's large scale works on paper along with smaller works on leather skins and short looped digital animations. Placing his own sculptural object into the vitrines with objects from the museum's collection further challenges visitors to see and seek relationships between the ancient and contemporary.

Installation images by Kevin Todora.

René Treviño: A New Codex is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts with additional support from Anonymous, Erin Cluley, Pam and Bob Tidwell and Travis Vandergriff. 

The Tia Collection of Santa Fe, NM was created with the exclusive intent to share an individual collector’s love for art across a variety of genres. The collection is curated and administered by Laura Finley Smith who works closely with the anonymous collector to continuously add to the Tia collection, and also with institutions to generously share the eclectic holdings of outstanding artists’ works.

Allied presents works from the Tia Collection “paired” with those from the OJAC. The connections between the works range from blatant to subtle. At times, works are paired by artist from different cultures or eras who investigate similar themes, or present works that elicit similar modes through formal devices. Other times, the juxtapositions can involve artists who use traditional approaches to image creation with those who use unconventional media.

Regardless of the viewer’s pictorial or thematic discoveries, an appreciation and recognition of connections between two seemingly dissimilar collections emphasize that both are generous gifts for audiences to contemplate and enjoy.

Matthew Bourbon creates non-linear narrative paintings whose interpretive clues are “rudely” yet strategically inter- rupted by abstract elements. Source material for his scenarios derives from found print images that depict mundane or innocuous tasks and scenes.

Bourbon converts clues like facial expressions and critical objects that we would normally use to read a narrative into abstracted areas of colorful stripes and blocks. These abstract distortions verge on overcoming all that the viewer considers comfortable and familiar much like an unwanted virus overtaking its host or digital glitches that distort an image. The results are paintings that create tension within the viewer as they strive to inter- pret the artist’s ambiguous yet intriguing vignettes.

Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Matthew Bourbon earned separate undergraduate degrees in Studio Art and Art History from the University of California at Davis. Relocating to New York City, he earned his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in 1999. Since then, his art has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Bourbon is a Professor of Art at the University of North Texas' College of Visual Arts and Design. He is also an active art critic and has contributed to Artforum Online, Flash Art, ArtNews, New York Arts Magazineand KERA Art and Seek.

Though born to Texas artists Terry and Jo Harvey Allen, Bale Creek Allen has developed his own personal visual language utilizing diverse materials and mediums. He discovers and brings to our attention objects and scenes that often go unnoticed but contain deep meaning.

Cast bronze tumbleweeds and tire treads along with photographs of forgotten places and discarded objects are his most recognizable subjects. His works invite us to consider where we have been, where we are, and where we might be headed.

Nobody’s Foolfeatures artists that employ the technique of trompe l’oeil (from the French phrase “deceive the eye”) in their work. The concept of depicting objects as though they exist in three-dimensional space has been around for centuries in art. Yet contemporary artists often create an additional level of content by adding visual references of events, situations, and observations related to our current world.