“Celebrity,” Paul Rodenhauser, oil as part of the “The Art of Healing” gallery. (Courtesy of Gallery With A Cause)
Healing can encompass medication, surgery and spirituality.
For the artists at the New Mexico Cancer Center’s Gallery with a Cause, it begins with a paintbrush or a camera.
“The Art of Healing” will hang at the gallery through Feb. 17. Curated by Regina Held, the exhibition showcases 380 meditative and uplifting works, most of them by artists whose lives have been impacted by life-changing illnesses. Forty percent of each sale is tax deductible and goes to the New Mexico Cancer Center Foundation. The money supports patients’ nonmedical needs for utility bills, child care, food and housing.
Rozanne Hakala, “Native Dancer,” photography. (Courtesy of Gallery with a Cause)
Self-taught photographer Rozanna Hakala hikes and photographs the rugged corners of New Mexico with her husband and dog Koda Chrome. Originally from outside Buffalo, New York, she moved to Placitas in 2013.
Hakala’s fascination with lenses germinated when she watched her older brother working in their home’s basement darkroom.
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“Watching him do images on film was my first introduction to photography,” she said. “It was fascinating to see this picture appear out of nowhere.”
After working in communications at a local Washington, D.C. public television station, then at PBS, she worked as an executive for an international media company.
“I’ve always been around creatives, from photographers and writers to media producers, so I hope some of that rubbed off on me,” she said.
When Hakala moved to New Mexico, its landscapes and people beckoned. She shot “Native Dancer” at an Indigenous dance at Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa.
“I took this photograph with a slow shutter to capture the movement and motion of her dress,” Hakala said. “I kind of wanted her to represent no one in particular. It’s not so specific that she’s identifiable. My subjects were always primarily landscapes until I met her.”
This marks Hakala’s first entry into Gallery with a Cause. Her father-in-law was a New Mexico Cancer Center patient.
“Glories,” Nolan Winkler, acrylic charcoal. (Courtesy of Gallery With A Cause)
Painting a floral series helped Nolan Winkler of Hillsboro cope with the trauma of nursing her husband, who died of a heart condition. It also helped her escape the pandemic-saturated news.
“It took my mind off everything to paint,” she said. “It always does. You go into the studio and you get started painting and you try not to think.”
Katherine Irish knew she was an artist from the time she was a child. She favors the jewel-like vibrancy of pastels.
“When you look under a microscope, the particles have a prismatic quality,” she said.
“Forest Light I,” Katherine Irish, pastel. (Courtesy of Gallery with a Cause)
A retired counselor, she has won numerous awards, including the Frank C. Wright Medal of Honor with the American Artists Professional League. Irish moved to Albuquerque in 1992.
Irish began working in pastels seriously in 2002, finding inspiration in New Mexico’…….