Homeland: Random Musings of a Native Son

Featuring New Paintings and Mixed Media Works by Harold Joiner
On View at Archway Gallery from November 2 - December 5, 2024
​
Of his new solo exhibition, artist Harold Joiner writes:
I grew up on the grassy plains of Eastern New Mexico. The paved road in front of our house ended at the property line, and there was nothing but prairie beyond it. I played in that prairie with neighborhood friends, especially in an arroyo that was filled with tall grass and sunflowers. We spent endless hours there chasing horned toads, grasshoppers, and the occasional snake. I’m old now, and even though I live in the big city, this childhood memory of being close to the land has never left me.

Artist Harold Joiner

I draw inspiration from those childhood experiences on the vast, windy plains, as well our frequent family visits to Santa Fe, where I had aunts, uncles, and cousins my age to play with. One of my aunts lived in a beautiful Territorial Style adobe house on what was then the edge of Santa Fe. Interested in architecture at an early age, that house and family visits to the nearby pueblos left me amazed that they were made of mud. 

---

Caldera

​I’m proud that my homeland is at the forefront of scientific developments today, but is also unique for its Hispanic and Native American heritages, proud that it gave birth to the earliest of civilizations in the Americas as well as today’s Nuclear Age. My interest in ancient places has led me to visit, and revisit, the historic sites of the American Southwest - places like Taos Pueblo, Mesa Verde, and Chaco Canyon.

I create works in varying degrees of abstraction, depending on the subject matter or a specific message I wish to convey. My “invented landscapes” are abstract representations drawn from imagination, memory, or something I’ve read. They usually have a distinctly regional character, and for those in this exhibition, I elevated my view of the imaginary landscape in order to capture a sense of its depth and vastness.  Also included here are some works that give a nod to the crafts of the region’s Native American tribes. In all of the works - landscape and otherwise - I’ve tried to evoke the spirit of Southwest regional art without resorting to cliché.
​Harold Joiner, November 2024

Comet Over Sky City