Luis Tapia ¡Orale!

Luis Tapia... The Seven Deadly Sins (Carved and painted wood). From the exhibition Luis Tapia ¡Orale! at Owings-Dewey Fine Art in Santa Fe, NM. "...In the exhibition catalogue, Lucy Lippard writes: 'As a New Mexican santero, Tapia is famous for breaking away from stylistic confinement while maintaining cultural continuity. He has disrupted the expectations of his genre while creating an art responsive to its own times, a complex task acknowledging and exploring the contradictions of modern life, or la vida loca. The vatos who populate his work are not saints, but they bear saints tattooed on their bodies, printed on their t-shirts and on their minds, whatever else may be blocking their paths toward sanctity. Their lives are often as tragic as those of the beleaguered religious, and Tapia celebrates them for their survival, their spirit, their existence.'"