Visiting Artists and Installations
Marietta Patricia Leis, born 1938 Newark New Jersey; lives Santa Fe, New Mexico, The Silent Road, 2019, acrylic with ground graphite on Tyvek, wood rod, plastic tubes, gift of the artist, photography by Stefan Batista
Marietta Patricia Leis
The Silent Road is a dialogue between painting and sculpture. It represents a road that leads in two directions, reaching upward toward the ceiling and winding down to the floor. The Silent Road was inspired by Marietta Leis’s time in Iceland during the dark months of the long winter. According to the artist, “The treeless, volcanic landscape revealed the earth’s curved horizon, confronting me with a stark image of all that is infinite—both visually and metaphorically. My acute sense of this fascinating and haunting place provided fertile ground for germination of The Silent Road.”
According to Leis, “In today’s noisy world it is easy to become distracted, numb to our deepest natures. The road to authenticity is by its very nature traveled in solitude. It is an internal road that, with patience, can lead deep into the core of our being. As we each embark on the journey to this rich and fertile place, we can discover a common thread of the shared humanity that binds us.”
Marietta Patricia Leis is an internationally exhibiting multidisciplinary artist and poet. She has lived and worked in New York City as well as Los Angeles, and is currently based in Santa Fe after living in Albuquerque for many years. Leis’s reductive, expressive works are shaped out of experiments in material process and she takes inspiration from forms found in nature, a sense of place, and the internal landscape. The Silent Road was originally created for an exhibition at the Palazzo Mora as part of the 2019 Venice Biennale.
About the
Albuquerque Museum
Visiting Artist Program
Since 2011, the Visiting Artist program at Albuquerque Museum has featured contemporary artists with a connection to New Mexico. The annual program provides an invited artist the opportunity to reimagine and activate the museum’s lobby, which is the first space visitors encounter upon entering the museum. The program includes the display of the artist’s work for one year, public engagement, and artist talks. The program aims to provide a bridge between the artistic practice of the visiting artist and the experience of contemporary art by the public.
The Visiting Artist program considers artists with compelling conceptual creativity. The large-scale space of the museum lobby has inspired several artists to create site-specific installations. Artists, however, are given the freedom to determine how they want to interact with the space.
ON VIEW NOW AT ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM
Supported by the Frederick Hammersley Fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation
PAST VISITING ARTISTS:
Artist in Residence: Gronk
Artist in Residence: Larry Bob Phillips
Artist in Residence: Ernest Doty
Artist in Residence: Lea Anderson
Artist-in-Residence: Virgil Ortiz
Artist-in-Residence: Paul Sarkisian
Artist-in-Residence: Ronald Rael