El Cante Amore, Margarete Bagshaw, 2005
Bursting with color and activity Bagshaw’s canvases are vibrant combinations of precise shape, texture, translucent layering, and light. Her paintings range from small to quite large and have an abstract, Cubist quality steeped in spirituality – a connection to her Native heritage and to her artistic forbears.
One wonders if Bagshaw’s grandmother, Pablita Velarde, were alive today would she be painting like this? It’s through her mother, acclaimed artist Helen Hardin, that Bagshaw traces her creative lineage back to Velarde – a dynasty of independent women artists as renown for their art as they were for breaking the rules.
In a conversation with Smithsonian.com on March 11, 2011, Bagshaw described her work in relationship to Hardin and Velarde’s this way; “When I paint my own compositions, I can connect with their independence, strength and creativity. If I choose to reference something from their paintings in something of mine, as in my ‘Mother Line’ series, it is like hearing their message, but interpreting it my own way.”
Margarete Bagshaw, born in 1964, grew up surrounded by her mother and grandmother’
Bagshaw, like her grandmother and mother, has successfully leaped the boundaries of traditional Native art where women only make pottery. And, she, too resists being categorized as a Native artist. In an interview with Kate Nelson in the winter issue of El Palacio magazine she said; “I’m in a position where I don’t have to be labeled… I don’t have to call myself an Indian artist to sell my work, and I decided that it was more to my advantage not to label myself as a particular kind of artist, based solely on my genealogy… now I know that I can be part of something, part of that lineage, without being defined by it.”
In addition to the more than 30 works on view in the exhibition will be videos of her working in her studio shot by husband Dan McGuinness.
The exhibition opening is Sunday, February 12, 2012 from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Exhibition Events:
Bagshaw’s opening day lecture, Women’s World, will be at 2:00 p.m. in the museum auditorium. The opening and lecture are free to New Mexico residents with ID, $9 out-of-state.
On Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 2 p.m. the museum will present A Conversation with Margarete Bagshaw and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Museum Director Shelby Tisdale and Carolyn Kastner, associate curator of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, will talk with Bagshaw and Smith about their artistic practice and the importance of mentoring. The conversation is held in conjunction with the exhibitions Margarete Bagshaw: Breaking the Rules and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: An American Modernist at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. The event is free to Museum of New Mexico Foundation members, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum members and New Mexico residents.
For more information about the opening and lectures, the public may call 505-476-1269, check the museum’s website at http://www.IndianArtsandCulture.org or the museum’s Facebook page.
High resolution images may be downloaded from the Museum of New Mexico’s Media Center (http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/
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The Museum of New Mexico founded in 1909 is composed of four museums (Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, Museum of International Folk Art, NM Museum of Art, NM History Museum/Palace of the Governors) located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
