Creatures of the Gila 2025
2 evening (5-7pm) receptions: Aug 29 & Sep 5
Show dates: Aug 30-Sep 1 & Sep 5-7
In this annual show, all entries represent, or are inspired by, “creatures” (mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and insects) that live in the Gila River watershed. A description of the actual creature on which the work is based is displayed with each piece, so the show draws those who love wildlife art AND those who want to learn more about wildlife in the Gila.
Prizes will be awarded by judge Diana Ingalls Leyba during the opening reception Friday, Aug 29, 5-7pm. The People’s Choice ribbon will be on display for September’s First Friday gallery walk, September 5, 5-7pm.
Meet the Judge Diana Ingalls Leyba
“My paintings come “off the wall” through a build up of layers and construction on the paint surface and I’ve begun to think of them as tapestries of paint. Surface texture and depth is achieved through a layering of many different materials and transparencies with a constant of paint, paper, colored pencils, threads, and beads. Images and symbols come from the everyday, from different cultures, and from within.
I am a literal person and pick imagery that evokes the universal in the personal or the sacred in the commonplace. The models that pose for me stand in as symbols for ideas and feelings. Juxtaposing images, whether people or animals or objects, set up a dialogue to be interpreted by the viewer.
A tapestry of interwoven brush strokes, layers of paper, paint, and thread have meaning or reason marking time in ritual form. I respond to one color coming through another as well as one image coming through another so that one’s mind must sort its perceptions. I enjoy the complexity of the surface. The act of painting becomes ritual as the layers build to create the result. Work as a stream of consciousness…work as spirituality…work to satisfy an aesthetic…”
Diana Ingalls Leyba was born in Georgetown Guyana, and raised in Philadelphia PA, getting her BFA at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University.
She relocated to Silver City, NM in 1996, where she works as an artist, operates an art gallery, and is a founder and director of the Youth Mural Program.
Diana Ingalls Leyba Studio & Gallery
315 N. Bullard Street • Silver City, New Mexico • 88061
Best of show: Gay Marks, “Last Light”, Oil
2nd Place: Hilary Klein, “Gila’s Pilgram“, Acrylic and Gold leaf
3rd Place: Susan Mach, “Rainbow in the Grass“, ceramic, underglaze, glaze, wire