Join IAIA Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) artists Darren Vigil Gray, and Monique Sonoquie in the Academic Building on the IAIA campus from 3:00 pm–5:00 pm for tours of the artists’ studio spaces. Free and open to the public.

Monique Sol Sonoquie

Monique Sol Sonoquie

January 22, 2019–March 14, 2019

Monique Sol Sonoquie (Chumash, Apache, Yaqui, Zapotec, Irish) is a multi-dimensional Indigenous Woman, in body, mind and spirit. As a Basketweaver, Documentary Filmmaker, Youth Advocate, Traditional Food and Medicine Gatherer, Educator, Romiromi Practitioner and EarthMother Protector, she has embodied many aspects of her rich heritages into her life and work. She is adaptable to any terrain, inspiration and affliction using her Indigenuity.

Through her California non-profit, The Indigenous Youth Foundation, Inc., and independently, she provides classroom presentations, basketweaving classes, Sacred Site preservation training, answering the calls of Elders and youth in her communities. From sponsoring Native Family Health Days, to authoring children’s books, organizing murals in schools, producing cultural videos, and hosting traditional healers, Sol Sonoquie embodies the tradition of sharing that is so essentially part of our cultures.

As a Basketweaver, she gathers traditional materials such as tule, juncus, hazel, and willow sticks, and more recently with kelp and seaweeds. With limited access to gathering sites and materials due to toxins, land loss ,and climate change, she has found alternative materials to preserve culture and land.

Her new-found challenge and exploration is weaving with recycled materials, combining her passions of traditional weaving and her dedication for “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.” During her residency at IAIA, Sol Sonoquie plans to explore and expand on representing traditional lifestyles by reclaiming post industrial waste, evolving from her recently created electronic cables baskets to life size sculptures.

Darren Vigil Gray

Darren Vigil Gray

February 15–March 15, 2019

An artist with feet in the contemporary world, Darren Vigil Gray (Jicarilla Apache/Kiowa Apache) draws his expression from a modernist arena where formal concerns such as composition, line, brushwork, even subject matter pay homage to an artist’s subjective experience. Raised on the isolated Jicarilla Apache Reservation in north-central New Mexico, the son of a Jicarilla Apache father and a Kiowa Apache mother from the Southern Plains of Oklahoma, Gray is the only tribal member of his generation to establish himself as a major figure in the contemporary art world.

Since 1987, he has shown regularly in Santa Fe’s leading galleries. Currently he is represented by The Gerald Peters Gallery and his annual Indian Market shows prove to be highly regarded and successful. As a modern Native American, he ventures to confront the two worlds in which he exists—keeping one foot in the modern world without compromising the elements of the natural world which feed and nurture his spirit. He is constantly challenging himself, finding new ways to bring life to the dead two-dimensional realm of his painting. In this aspect, Gray is the mediator between the earthly realm of paint, and the unearthly realm of artistic creation.

Partially funded by the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission and the 1% Lodgers Tax.