Passages : Pacia Sallomi : Hovenring

Artist Statement:

The title for this show is inspired by the multiple meanings associated with the word, “passage”— a transition from one state of being to another, one place to another, one perspective to another… passage as a noun, as a verb — it is a place…it is an act of movement. This show begins with a piece called Dreamtime, created in 1997 during my MFA program. It proved prescient to the work and research interests that developed much later in my career.  I have always had a strong affinity for indigenous and ancient cultures.  This has led to travels to prehistoric cave-painting sites in France and Spain; Celtic stone alignments in France, England and Corsica; and many Native American archeologic sites, especially in New Mexico. During the early stages of working on my series called “Roundabouts” (the square paintings in this exhibition), I traveled to the Northern Territories of Australia to visit rock art sites and Aboriginal communities, including volunteering at an indigenous art center outside of Alice Springs.  It is with deepest respect that I explore these influences in my art, informed by an awareness that contemporary culture has lost touch with our collective roots and interconnection with nature. I see these works as contemplative mandalas and started making them for people I know as a kind of spiritual compass.
 
Painting is my research.  I don’t know what I am entering when I begin a painting, but I allow it to
develop intuitively.  I often don’t consciously understand the symbols that appear until the painting is well underway or even sometimes after it is complete.  Critically, these roundabouts are all aerial views of specific landscapes—often, but not always, they are roadways.  When I first encountered Aboriginal Australian painting, in 2009, I sensed that they were landscapes. I knew it had to do with “walkabouts” but I could not understand this perspective. It was many years into this series that I heard an Aboriginal answer this question, “how is it that you navigate through this land?” (which in this case was quite flat). The answer was, “by seeing it from above, how else?”

Biography:
My path to artistic work was circuitous.  I began college with a degree in Nutrition and Psychology at UC Davis but then embarked on apprenticeships with midwives in Boulder and Santa Fe. After my training at The Maternity Center in El Paso and subsequent state certification, I joined a Home Birth Services practice in Albuquerque where I assisted in the delivery of hundreds of babies over about 11 years. During this period I also worked as an articles editor for Mothering Magazine and co-authored a booklet entitled Midwifery and the Law.
 
Eventually I returned to school for a master’s degree in art education at the University of New Mexico with a focus on ceramics and photography but soon discovered my love of painting while taking a course from Martin Facey. In 1997 I completed an MFA at Texas Tech University and from 1997-2021 taught Photography, Painting, Drawing, and Contemporary Art History at Carroll University in Wisconsin. It was there that I began to nurture my deep love of travel as an integral part of my research and developed an international course for students called “Creative Travel Journals.”
 
My work has been shown both nationally and internationally in over 150 group exhibitions and 27 solo shows. I have attended artist residencies in France, Italy and Australia.  In 2003 I spent a six-month sabbatical leave in southern France that culminated in a bi-lingual poetry/painting collaboration titled, Shield, Le Bouclier, published in 2007. Indeed, my strong commitment to interdisciplinary art forms such as poetry, music, and dance often leads to interlacing them together in my art projects, always seeking new connections and insights. For me, being an artist is in essence  being a midwife to the creative process.

Website:  www.paciasallomi.com