Santa Fe Art Institute is pleased to present H2O, a unique group exhibition that demonstrates the many ways water engages artists’ imaginations. The work on exhibit investigates the diverse and dynamic relationships between humans and water and illustrates the relevance of water to contemporary society, including water’s place in the environment and ecology; water as a material of and for reflection; water’s ability to provide immersion, weightlessness, and ablution; and its role in ritual and magic.

Curated by Jo Anna Isaak, independent curator and professor of Art History at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, H2Ois a traveling exhibition that has received critical acclaim and popular attention at its previous venues, including Danese Gallery in New York, and, most recently, the Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Colorado. Santa Fe Art Institute is H2O’s final venue, and this presentation will offer Santa Fe audiences the opportunity to see the work of several artists not seen at previous venues. The exhibition will run November 22, 2003 – January 4, 2004, and there will be a public opening reception on Saturday, November 22, from 5 to 7 pm and a Members’ Private Preview that will include a gallery talk by curator Jo Anna Isaak at 4 pm.

“The artists in the exhibition H2O explore our relationship with the element that is the major component of our bodies, the site of our origins, and a matrix of the imagination. They focus on the water contained in our bodies and water that contains our bodies, actual ponds and rivers, as well as water that populates our dreams and reveries,” writes Isaak in the exhibition catalogue essay. This fully illustrated catalogue, published by Hobart and William Smith Colleges, will be available at SFAI.

H2O brings together artists from the United States and Europe who are working in a variety of mediums including painting, photography, video, and sculpture. Participating artists include Laura Aguilar, Janet Biggs, Vija Celmins, Carol Cole, Thomas Joshua Cooper, Dorothy Cross, Carol Fonde, Jenny Gage, Harmony Hammond, Helen and Newton Harrison, Sabine Haubitz & Stefanie Zoche, Basia Irland, Amy Jenkins, Mark Jones, Nadav Kander, Samm Kunce, Eve Andrée Laramée, Stacy Levy, David Maisel, Sally Mann, Dodo Jin Ming, Eileen Neff, Nurit Newman, Joan Perlman, Christy Rupp, Bonnie Rychlak, Jennifer Schlesinger, Jeanne Silverthorne, Nancy Spero, Steina, May Stevens, Sharon Stewart, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Susan Unterberg, Mia Westerlund Roosen, and Francis Whitehead.