Parallel Visions: Suzanne Sbarge's Anomalies and Julia Lambright's Light in the Desert
Opening Saturday, August 8, Gallery Hózhó presents Julia Lambright: Light in the Desert and Suzanne Sbarge: Anomalies, exhibitions by accomplished artists who consider how, as defined by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, a space or physical location becomes a place, an area imbued with meaning. These series illustrate how the landscape shapes not only the flora and fauna but also cultural values and invite viewers to consider how the climate and topography shape memory and identity.
Julia Lambright's Light in the Desert reflects on her experience moving to New Mexico. Born in Russia, Lambright moved to Albuquerque in her twenties, where she earned both a BFA and MFA from the University of New Mexico. Her paintings record the shift from seeing the desert as an empty landscape to understanding it as a place of connection. Lambright recalls,"When I arrived in New Mexico, the desert at first felt like absence. Slowly, the land taught me how to see, not only with my eyes, but with my heart." Her new series explores how light expresses that relationship. Earth, sky, and clouds become forms through which the artist explores belonging. The paintings reflect years of careful observation and a commitment to understanding the landscape on its own terms.
Created during an artist’s residency at Ogden Contemporary Arts in Utah, Suzanne Sbarge's Anomalies was inspired by Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Sbarge encountered a place shaped by environmental change, where questions of survival and adaptation affect both wildlife and people. The exhibition includes collage, painting, cyanotypes, animation, and three-dimensional printing. Sbarge's hybrid human and animal figures move between species and states of being, challenging fixed ideas about identity. In science, an anomaly is something that falls outside what is expected. Sbarge uses that idea to imagine forms of life that reflect change rather than certainty. Her work asks viewers to consider how climate change reshapes ecosystems and the relationships between living beings. The return of white pelicans to new nesting grounds after years of decline became an important point of departure for the series. For Sbarge, their story points to both loss and the possibility of renewal.
Light in the Desert and Anomalies offer two approaches to the question of how a space becomes a place. Lambright’s brightly colored paintings suggest the presence of life in the arid New Mexico desert, finding the abstracted geometric forms in the plant life. The composite life forms in Sbarge’s work link humans and animals, considering how all life forms are tied together. Both artists remind us that our understanding of place continues to evolve through experience, observation, and imagination.
GALLERY TALK: Saturday, September 5, 3-4 pm
Join gallery director Suzanne Fricke, PhD, and Suzanne Sbarge to discuss Anomalies. To reserve your place, contact info@galleryhozho or 505-306-2977.
WORKSHOP: Wednesday, September 23, 10 am-4 pm
Suzanne Sbarge will teach a collage and painting workshop.
Fee: $150 / register at galleryhozho.com/events
