CURRENT EXHIBITION
Oliver Bell: One Man’s Dumpster is Another Man’s Garden
May 9 - June 1, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, May 16th from 6-9pm
Revolt Gallery and the UNM-Taos Art Department are pleased to present the solo exhibition Oliver Bell: One Man’s Dumpster is Another Man’s Garden. The opening reception is on Friday, May 16, 2025 from 6-9pm with the artist in attendance. The exhibition runs from May 9 through June 1, 2025.
One Man’s Dumpster is Another Man’s Garden features never-before-seen work created by Oliver Bell over the past five years. The pieces are made from aluminum foil discarded by Oliver’s father, Larry Bell. Some works are Oliver’s humble interpretation of his father’s internationally recognized practice. The exhibition also includes a brand-new series inspired by and dedicated to his late mother, Janet Webb. This is Oliver’s first solo show in Taos in over a decade and is a tribute to his prolific parents.
Oliver Bell was destined to be an artist. His parents are both seminal and influential figures in the art world. His father, Larry Bell, is an American contemporary artist and sculptor best known for his glass boxes and large-scale illusionistic sculptures. He has received grants from institutions including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His mother, Janet Webb, was an influential curator, community innovator, and arts organizer in Taos, New Mexico. She passed away in June 2024 and was inducted into the New Mexico Tourism Hall of Fame.
Oliver Bell was born and raised in Taos, New Mexico. He is inspired by skateboarding and hip-hop culture, which led him to study video production. Through his love of film, he began documenting his life, including filming friends skateboarding and making music. The documentary aspect of filmmaking eventually brought him back to Taos, where he began working in the tourism industry alongside his mother, Janet Webb. There, he gained professional experience working on commercial projects, including videos for small businesses, the arts, and promotional materials for events and organizations.
From there, he began collaborating with artists and galleries, documenting art and exhibitions. He is a recipient of the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Florida, an experience that inspired him to begin making his own art. Oliver has worked with his father, Larry Bell, for nearly ten years, contributing to the creation of some of the most recognized large-scale sculptures in the world.
Oliver says about the work in the show, “I feel like this is the art the world would want me to make. My mom loved Morning Glories, so I started making these flowers out of the discarded foil from my father’s work. I told my mom before she passed that she would never be forgotten, so I made these flowers that don’t die as a tribute to her.”
Read the press on Oliver Bell: One Man’s Dumpster is Another Man’s Garden HERE and HERE.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Catherine Langley: Jungle
June 13 - July 6, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, June 13th from 6-9pm
Revolt Gallery is pleased to present artist Catherine Langley’s Jungle: her first solo exhibition of sculpture, photography, and immersive installations. Langley’s multidisciplinary work draws on autobiographical stories and the feminine experience. The artwork in this exhibition explicitly addresses the themes of gender roles, gender-based vulnerability, and aging. Although her work invites complex reflection, it is inherently dramatic and often contains elements of humor.
The show’s title, Jungle, refers to the way women navigate the landscape of societally imposed gender roles, imprinted on us from an early age. Three installations investigate this limiting force from several perspectives: the damage sustained, how we protect ourselves, and how we strive to heal. Through mixed media sculpture, photography, video, and wearable art, Jungle addresses gender, vulnerability, healing, and transcendence. The sculpture Jungle considers one of the first instances of public shaming as a female: the jungle gym on the playground. Langley has constructed a life-sized jungle gym of steel. Suspended and encaged within the steel lattice are a series of pure white dresses, symbolic of the innocence of childhood. Throughout our lives, how we dress supposedly defines the “type” of woman we are, whether we show our underpants on the playground or, later in life, if we reveal too much flesh.
Another installation, Nature/Nurture, addresses the trauma we all experience to some degree in the home, at school, or in church. Traumatic damage to the psyche or spirit is represented in this piece as a series of nonfunctional, chopped, and battered chairs. This piece is essentially a map describing an emotional journey, portrayed in three parts: origin, confrontation, and healing/transcendence. Langley’s work invites you to enter the playground of ideas, where preconceptions may be challenged, intellectual connections fostered, and a new way forward glimpsed.
Catherine Langley received a BA in Geology from Skidmore College, and after a forty-year career as a geologist, retired to Taos to study and create art. She is currently attending the University of New Mexico – Taos and is a candidate for an Associate Degree in Fine Arts, expected to graduate in 2026. She has received a School of Visual Arts (SVA) online residency fellowship and a Taos Fall Arts / UNM-Taos Scholarship. She also completed a residency in New York City at SVA. Her work has been published in the art and literary journal Howl and was featured as cover artist in 2023. She has been a part of numerous group shows in Taos. Most recently, she has been granted permission to construct and install a permanent, site specific sculpture along the UNM-Taos campus walking trail titled Pleiades. An accompanying exhibit in the Atrium gallery titled Pleiades is forthcoming.
Catherine’s focus is on conceptual art. She is currently creating sculpture, installations, and earthworks using elements from nature, found objects, printmaking, fabric, and photography.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Christine Schwathe
WOMXN: Annual Show for Women’s History Month
March 14th - April 25th, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, March 14th from 6-9pm
The Revolt Gallery and UNM-Taos Art Department partnership presents WOMXN, a multidisciplinary group exhibition curated by Petra Marguerite.
WOMXN is a multidisciplinary group show to celebrate Women’s History Month, curated by local emerging artist Petra Marguerite. This show honors the cultural diversity of feminine voices in New Mexico and multiple mediums of expression, including what is considered to be traditional craft-based art forms, functional art, and fine art. The show includes women-identifying artists from varying backgrounds ranging from emerging to established in the international art scene. Several are showing work from their art studies, in the ethos of creating visibility for new artists. The show title, WOMXN, is inclusive of multiple identities of the LGBTQIA+ community, inviting the audience to consider the scope of experiences that make up the feminine narrative. The diversity of artists in this exhibition come from Indigenous, Hispanic, African American, Japanese, and other cultural communities.
Mediums in the show include glass, fabric, and clay sculptures, as well as paintings, photography, and performance art. Students from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) glass sculpture program in Santa Fe are providing several pieces. In continuing with student works, artists from UNM-Taos and Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) are also a part of the exhibition.
Artists exhibiting in the show are Montanna Binder, Janelle Worthington Cardenas, Aubrey Cheatham, Bee Dallo, Bianca Gabrielle Goyette, Turiya Gross, Jodie Herrera, Brooke Hessler, Turiya LaLoba, Melissa Lind, Shyla Martinez, Alexandra Miller, Geraldine Montoya, Lucy Nichols, Mayumi Nishida, Jazmin Novak, Christine Schwathe, Mildred Raphaelito, Christie Serpentine, Robin Stanaway, Margaret Thompson, Sama Vazquez, and more.
WOMXN marks the curatorial debut of Petra Marguerite, a Taos-based artist born in Albuquerque and raised in Vienna, Austria. She studied chemistry at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. While she maintained an art practice during her studies, she became creatively starved and made it her mission to connect the worlds of science and art. After graduating, she moved back to New Mexico to pursue her art and education career. She has taught all age ranges in alternative education systems like Montessori and Waldorf. In these spaces she focused on decolonizing the classroom and empowering students’ voices. She currently works at the UNM-Taos Art Department, Paseo x Hotel Willa Gallery, and hosts monthly film nights at Omnihum Gallery. A practice of dismantling patriarchy and decolonizing art spaces is to push for the inclusion of multiple voices that have historically been excluded.
Read the press on WOMXN HERE and HERE.
Christie Serpentine: Nature VS. Nurture
January 24 – February 28th, 2025
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, January 24th from 6-9pm
The Revolt Gallery and UNM-Taos Art Department partnership presents Nature vs. Nurture, a multidisciplinary exhibition by Christi Serpentine.
In Nature vs. Nurture, Christie Serpentine examines the forces that shape identity, exploring the tension between what is inherited and what is cultivated. Drawing from personal mythology, Serpentine uses her organic gardening practice as both a metaphor and a collaborator, creating works that navigate cycles of breaking and rebuilding, fragility and resilience. The exhibition invites viewers into a space of reflection, where decay becomes a foundation for creation, and growth is both an act of defiance and hope.
The exhibition unfolds as a narrative of reclamation, with each piece reflecting the struggle and longing involved in forging a new story. Glass, a recurring material in the work, becomes a metaphor for this process. It is simultaneously delicate and temperamental, requiring both precision and surrender in its creation. A central piece to the exhibition is a large glass serpent, coiled on a bed of sand. Sand being glass’s original form, represents cycles of shedding and rebirth. The serpent’s pink morganite stone set as its “third eye” is a symbolic representation of vulnerability, healing, and compassion. Nearby the serpent is a pink glass apple, which reimagines traditional iconography through a feminist lens while reframing the power of belief structures.
Participation deepens the exhibition’s impact, inviting viewers to engage with its themes in tangible and personal ways. In one piece, visitors are encouraged to take seed packets from the gallery wall, planting their own stories of growth. In another, a planter filled with sand and beeswax candles creates a vigil, offering participants the chance to release burdens and cultivate new intentions. A key part of the exhibition is an immersive installation where visitors step into a dimly lit room onto a mirrored pathway. The reflective surface invites moments of introspection, encouraging viewers to see themselves as part of the work. Encircled by salt—a symbol of protection and purification—the space becomes a quiet retreat for renewal.
The exhibition space itself becomes a site of quiet ritual. Flickering candles, the warmth and alchemy of fire, and the grounding presence of materials like sand and salt transform the gallery into a space that feels sacred. Through this layered experience, Nature vs. Nurture invites viewers to reconsider the forces that shape them, step into their own spiral of the human condition, and begin anew.
Christie Serpentine is a sculptor and interdisciplinary artist whose work is a study in contrasts and duality. Throughout her practice, she illuminates the profound interplay between strength and vulnerability, and the tension that resides where they both collide. Rooted in a deep connection to materiality and metaphor, her practice investigates themes of transformation, destruction, identity, and reclamation of personal narrative. Born and raised in Philadelphia, with a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Serpentine’s artistic foundation is shaped by the city’s grit and the challenges of a fractured upbringing. Her early experiences defined by adversity and survival, combined with professional work in ecological restoration and construction projects across backcountry landscapes, inform a practice that interweaves labor, environment, and the human condition. Time spent navigating male-dominated fields, remote and rugged terrains, and psychologically demanding spaces has sharpened her perspective, amplifying her process through a feminist lens. This perspective allows her to explore the complexities of womanhood, where fractures become seams, and the act of transmuting suffering into beauty becomes a celebration of resilience and transformation.
Serpentine often works with glass, stone and concrete as materials that carry deep, personal resonance. While glass is often perceived as delicate, ethereal, and feminine, it is in many ways, a masochist’s material — an anomaly that is wildly temperamental and unforgiving, with a relentless risk of shattering mid process. Each piece is an intimate exploration of tenacity and devotion that spans months. Despite this challenging effort, the process yields a material that is alluring, transparent and luminous, engaging with light in ways that feel spellbinding. The inclusion of concrete and stone channels the urban and industrial roots of Serpentine’s childhood, where she learned that beauty can still persist in harsh or overlooked places. Stone and concrete both echo symbols of strength, masculinity, and permanence. Overall, the combination of these three materials blur traditional binaries, inviting contemplation of their shared origins—sand, heat, and pressure. This unites seemingly opposing elements and their ability to reflect the contradictions within ourselves. Through her practice, Serpentine engages in an ongoing dialogue about dismantling limiting beliefs to forge poetry and meaning in the face of turmoil.
Read the Taos News article on Christie Serpentine HERE.
Read the Albuquerque Journal article on Christie Serpentine HERE.
Cougar Vigil: Chronicles of Contrast
November 8 - December 6, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, November 8th from 6-9pm
Revolt Gallery and UNM-Taos Art Department partnership presents Chronicles of Contrast, a mixed media photography exhibition by Cougar Vigil - one of 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023!
Chronicles of Contrast, a mixed media experimental photography show by Cougar Vigil of the Jicarilla Apache tribe, delves into the interplay between appropriation, stereotypes, and images used to represent Native American culture. Drawing from his childhood on the reservation and the traditions of his tribe, Vigil’s work explores the contrast between true representation of Indigeneity, sourcing images from an archive that he collected as a photojournalist for his tribal newspaper, and the stereotypical depictions spread through mainstream media. The collaged fabric cyanotypes, including recognizable Native American artifacts such as bows and arrows mixed with abstract patterns and plants, challenge the viewer’s ability to recognize the subject matter and prompt them to look more closely. Vigil creates space for the audience to become curious, ask questions, and learn about Indigenous culture rather than speculate from a distance. Cougar Vigil on his work — Now is an important time to “connect Indigenous narratives with the broader public sphere to combat generalizations and simplified sentiments of Indigeneity.”
Cougar Vigil is a documentary and experimental photographer from the Jicarilla Apache Nation in Northern New Mexico. His passion for photography began in high school in the early 2000s. Based in New Mexico, Vigil's work is deeply rooted in his responsibility to his community and traditional Jicarilla Apache scholarship. His unique approach to photography explores themes related to Indigenous identity and incorporates elements of his photography archive. Vigil graduated from Pratt Institute, earning his Master of Fine Arts in 2018. In addition to his work as a photographer, Vigil is also the Editor of the Jicarilla Chieftain, a tribal newspaper. In recognition of his contributions to the arts in New Mexico, Vigil was selected as one of the twelve artists to know in the state in 2023 by Southwest Contemporary magazine. Vigil's dedication to his craft and community is evident in all he does, and he continues to inspire others through his art and teaching.
Read the Taos News article on Cougar Vigil: Chronicles of Contrast HERE.
Kate Turner: Masks All The Way Down
September 13 - October 26, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, September 13th from 6-9pm
Masks All The Way Down, an immersive installation by multidisciplinary artist Kate Turner, delves into the intricate interplay between masking, identity, and the metaphorical weaving of text and autobiography through soft sculpture and mixed materials. Drawing from her childhood experiences as a trans-racially adopted black person into a white family, Turner’s work explores the complex layers of identity formation and the societal pressures that influence self-presentation, and the textual weaving of a coherent self-narrative. The concept of masking plays a central role in self-presentation, serving as both a protective shield while at the same time as a barrier to authentic self-expression.
The soft sculptures, including quilted corn stalks and scarecrow figures, symbolize Turner’s journey is one of belonging and not belonging in a predominantly white environment, symbolized by athletic gear and uniforms that highlight the paradox of fitting in and standing out. These dynamic portrayals challenge viewers to consider the masks they wear and the factors that shape their own identities. By bringing these interwoven themes to the forefront, Turner creates a space for reflection and dialogue on the complexities of identity, societal expectations, and the power of self-representation.
Kate Turner is a visual artist and writer from West Chester, Ohio. She uses sculpture, installation, film, fashion, and performance to abstract memories and experiences reflecting on what it was like forging an identity as a transracial adoptee. Through her storytelling, she to examines contemporary issues surrounding identity, race, and gender. She holds a BFA from Bowling Green State University, and an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in sculpture and extended media. She has completed residencies at Art Farm Nebraska, The Galveston Artist Residency, and the Roswell Artist-In-Residency Program. She currently works as a STEAM Instructor and Makerspace director at her local library in Roswell New Mexico, where she currently lives and works. Most recently, Kate Turner was chosen as one of Southwest Contemporary’s 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023.
Read the Taos News article on Kate Turner: Masks All The Way Down HERE.
SVA’s Rachel Gisela Cohen and UNM-Taos Art Students Show at Revolt Gallery in Dual Exhibition
August 17 - September 2, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, August 17th from 6-9pm
Revolt Gallery and the Department of Fine Arts, Film and Digital Media at UNM-Taos are pleased to present a dual exhibition highlighting the educational partnership between the School of Visual Arts in New York City and UNM-Taos.
Dance Cadaverous, a solo exhibition by Rachel Gisela Cohen, will be featured in the small gallery. Rachel Gisela Cohen's work reflects on beauty, surface, and the excess of contemporary culture, moving between the natural and material world. She uses paint, pigment, mica, recycled textiles, and collected fabrics to create her sequin-encrusted chromatic paintings which are created with an intuitive and emotive process. Utilizing the blade of her bandsaw, she employs a mode of automatic drawing while carving the initial shape of her support. She then dyes and paints canvas, which she fastens over the hand-carved form. Stretching, dressing and wrapping each work in a variety of recycled textiles and sequined fabrics, she creates works that both reveal and conceal her process. Cohen builds up the physical and visual layers of her works until their surface reaches a saturation point or it finds its final form. The shapes of her canvases are abstract, but seemingly may reference familiar external and internal forms, such as the outline of a mountain range or the unevenness of skin hanging from your thigh.
Rachel Gisela Cohen is an artist, educator, and independent curator based in New York City. She has shown her work nationally and internationally, exhibiting at Spring Break Art Show, The Bryant Park Foundation, The Armenia Art Fair, Pierogi Gallery’s The Boiler, The Yard, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, and Hunter College Art Galleries. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, COPE NYC, Montclair Art Museum, and most recently, Revolt Gallery in Taos, New Mexico. She received her M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts from Drew University. She currently teaches as a Senior Artist Educator at the Museum of Arts and Design and manages the School of Visual Arts Artist Residency Programs in New York City.
Rachel Gisela Cohen is directly responsible for creating the educational partnership between SVA and UNM-Taos. She has facilitated multiple online and in-person residencies at the School of Visual Arts for UNM-Taos students, including two full scholarships to the summer program in New York City. Three students who participated in the 4-5 week summer residencies are included in the group exhibition in the adjacent gallery.
Untranslated is a multi-disciplinary group exhibition curated by six emerging Taos artists who shared the Art Practices studio at UMN-Taos Art in 2023-2024. The show features work by Catherine Langley (SVA Resident, 2024), Petra Marguerite (SVA Resident Fellow, 2024), Lucinda Nichols, Selena Pacheco (SVA Resident Fellow, 2023), Aramara Pereda, and Dashel Stone. A wide range of themes, media, and approaches to making art reflect the diversity within this group of artists. Visitors will see a mixed media show incorporating painting, printmaking, assemblages, collage, and video. Dashel Stone has created an installation exploring his love for the southwestern desert. His fascination with sharp objects such as barbed wire and cacti draws from the destructive and boundary-breaking days of his youth. Aramara Pereda uses found images and film footage to investigate the evolution of media and human perception. The abstract compositions range from nostalgic personal landscapes to bold and colorful representations of the cacophony of modern life. Selena Pacheco's vibrant and colorful work serves as a deeply cathartic visual diary reflecting her personal experiences with trauma, femininity, identity, and the metamorphosis from girlhood to adulthood through found materials and large-scale oil paintings. Lucinda Nichols creates multi-media sculptures and paintings with somber, colorful, and chaotic themes that address the need to understand the worldviews, psychology, and experiences of all people. Artist and chemist Petra Marguerite explores the theme of polarity through the Turing pattern: a pattern that recurs everywhere from repellant forces in physics to predator-prey distribution in ecology. Working in metal, fabric, and paper, Catherine Langley uses the corset to symbolize restrictions imposed by society on women and the self-imposed restraints that have limited their full potential.
Read the Taos News article on dual exhibition HERE.
Benny and Friends: The Land Of Mañana
July 4 - August 2, 2024
OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, July 4th from 4-6pm
Revolt Gallery i pleased to present Benny and Friends: The Land Of Mañana, a multi-disciplinary exhibition curated by Dashel Stone and in collaboration with the UNM-Taos Department of Fine Arts, Film and Digital Media. The show features Benny Sanders, a Taos-based painter, and a group of twelve local artists who are fiends of the artist and curator. Best friends and colleagues, Stone and Sanders conceived the exhibition The Land Of Mañana as a way to showcase the natural beauty of Northern New Mexico and the diverse artists who are inspired by living in the high desert. Visitors will see oil paintings, drawings, and books by Sanders, as well as the work of three jewelers, three sculptors, two photographers, a broom-maker, a knife maker, and a printmaker.
Exhibiting along side Benny Sanders are Pia Adorn, JC Ortiz, Salma Vir, Steven Villalobos, Sierra Hard, Lauren Willsie, Montanna Binder, Haley Harper, Suni Sonquo Vizarra, Rosi Rosenthal and Dashel Stone. The opening reception is on Thursday, Thursday, July 4th from 6-9pm with many of the artists in attendance. Benny and Friends: The Land Of Mañana runs July 4 - August 2, 2024.
Benny Sanders is a painter currently based in Taos, New Mexico. He began his painting career later in life at the age of 34 when he saw someone painting en plein air outside of his workplace. He quit his job to embark on a nomadic lifestyle, painting outside nearly everyday as he traveled across the country. He is self-taught and paints traditional subject matter, such s landscapes, portraits, and wildlife, with a modern approach to design, color, and place. Sanders says about his work in the Revolt show, “This group of paintings are a homage to Place as a romantic and dramatic narrative. Gustave Courbet was (mis) quoted as saying, ‘I’ve never seen an Angel therefore, I don't paint angels. In a world full of Day Job Painters illustrating themselves into a world of Cowboys and Indians, I hope my work comes off as honest at the very least. I overheard at a bar once that painters don't really paint things, they paint themselves.”
Benny and Friends: The Land Of Mañana marks the curatorial debut of Dashel Stone, Taos-based multi-disciplinary artist, UNM-Taos student, Atrium Gallery Coordinator, and the Assistant to the Chair of the UNM-Taos Art Department. He works with a variety of mediums, but his passion for creating is rooted in crafting unique and eye-catching jewelry. He also works in wood, stone, video, photography, and traditional drawing and painting materials. Stone is a process-based artist. His newest sculptures are a critique on the effects of capitalism on our environment. One piece included in the show is a lilac wood sculpture of a disjointed mother coyote. It has turquoise veins, bone/wood tooth inlay, with a human hand carved from apple wood, tangled and strangled in barb wire, mounted on a rifle, and anchored to its ponderosa/silver base by a rusty chain. This new work is inspired by sculptures by artist Rick Bartow, and his love of New Mexico and its natural beauty. Steve McFarland, Revolt Gallery Director, says, “I’m excited to see Dashel’s first curated exhibition. He chose an eclectic mix of Taos artists to compliment Benny Sanders’ work. And seeing Benny’s paintings come to life inside Revolt sets the bar high for the anticipation of this upcoming show.”
This exhibition also marks the first of several collaborative exhibitions between Revolt Gallery and UNM-Taos. As Fred Peralta Hall on Kaluer Campus is renovated over the next year, the UNM-Taos Atrium Gallery will be closed. In an effort to continue to bring high caliber gallery programing to the community, the Department of Fine Arts, Film and Digital Media has partnered with Revolt Gallery. Sarah Stolar, Chair of the Department, says, “We are thrilled to use this opportunity to move our gallery exhibitions directly into the heart of the community. Revolt is a gallery that uplifts Taos artists and also has their finger on the pulse of contemporary art. Over the next year, Steve and I will be working together to curate exhibitions that will reflect our collective mission and highlight artists who make a great impact on Taos.”
Read the Taos News article on Benny and Friends: The Land Of Mañana HERE.