Conditions of Control Exhibition at CAV Window Gallery

See Marcus Xavier Chormicle's first solo show titled "Still Playing With Fire," and Ashley Diane Saldana's and Karly Jean Kainz's first collaborative project, "Conditions of Control," at CAV Gallery. Saldana and Kainz's collaboration is shown in the Window Gallery, with Chormicle's solo show held in the main gallery.

Still Playing With Fire by Marcus Xavier Chormicle

Still Playing With Fire is a multidisciplinary, lens based exhibition from Las Cruces artist, Marcus Xavier Chormicle. The project addresses legacies of image making in relation to cycles of trauma, violence, forgiveness and self determination. By photographing his own family, abstracting their images through, patterning, beading, collaging, and video, in collaboration with various other artists, Marcus asserts his own family members into the cultural and historical cannons of New Mexico and draws lines between narratives of violence perpetrated by and against his family. From the preservation of the Fort Selden site as a symbol genocide against Indigenous people, to the death of his grandfather, an enrolled Agua Caliente Cahuilla man, following his shooting while in police custody, through the murder of his uncle, and the overdose of his younger cousin. The act of image making serves to functionally highlight and perpetuate this violence by cementing the moments in time as art work and as artifacts of an ongoing war of attrition. 

Still Playing With Fire also addresses legacies of image making by incorporating archival family photographs which provide context for Marcus’ own practice, while providing opportunities of self representation for the subjects of his work. 

The show aims to indict the viewers, subject and artists as participants in violent systems that maintain the status quo in New Mexico, some as victims and perpetrators of abuse and self fulfilling prophecies, others as beneficiaries of centuries of slaughter, theft and exploitation of the original inhabitants of the region. 

Conditions of Control by Ashley Diane Saldana and Karly Jean Kainz

This project is a collaboration between Ashley Diane Saldana and Karly Jean Kainz as an investigation between human interaction and technology in relation to the sustainability of plant life. Searching to understand the complexities of how the role of technology plays in life, Conditions of Control tethers between the controlled and uncontrolled, as evidence to the ways awareness and human connection are crucial components in the care of biology. Ceramic vessels shelter and construct a landscape of study, experimenting with various interactions of care by choreographing light, water, and sound to simulate artificial and natural environments. Some rely on human interaction while others are created through automation with technology. Each of these environments determine the treatments numerous plants receive, while others solely represent life without care that then in turn become neglected.