Ruth Tatter's Watercolors at Marigold Arts, a Canyon Road Gallery, Santa Fe

Ruth Tatter

Steller Autumn, 21" x 28"

Watercolor wildlife portraits by Ruth Tatter

Tatter’s wildlife portraits make the viewer the subject of an inscrutable animal gaze, inverting the usual perspective of animal-as-subject. Liberated from notions of subjectivity and sentimentalism, Tatter’s wildlife scrutinize us, or simply go about the business of being wildlife, with no regard for the human viewer. This perspective allows the viewer to effectively disappear, or to become part of the untamed landscape; destabilizing what we think we know about animals and our separateness from them.

Her watercolor images are photographic in their realism and imbued with a sense of heart and dignity. Her palette is influenced by the far-flung habitats and wetter climes that many of her subjects inhabit. Tatter’s work has been exhibited and collected throughout the West. She resides in the mountains of Northern New Mexico.

Marigold Arts was established on Canyon Road in April 2002. The gallery represents the best of fine art and craft by New Mexico artists, featuring handwoven textiles, and the large-format landscape photography of Kenneth Parker. Marigold Arts represents a diverse range of fine art, including wearable art, watercolor paintings, sculpture, clay, fine furniture, glass, and jewelry. Gallery artists welcome requests for custom commissions.
House Cat, 18" x 24"	Leopard Appaloosa, 15" x 19"
HAWK!, 15" x 20"	Frog Pond, 18" x 24"
Bantam, 14" x 11"	Tabby, 20" x 15"
Giraffes, 24" x 18"	Macaw, 20" x 15"
Green Iguana, 24" x 18"	Buck, 20" x 15"
Ruth Tatter Some subjects are never exhausted. We focus on different details – the patterns of bark, the contrasts of light, the texture of fur. I believe that if you become familiar with even a part of a place, its details, you have in some way touched it all and that the whole is an expansion of its smallest components. If you can see the beauty of a single creature, you can appreciate wildlife's integral part in the entire web of life. Ruth received her art training from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, and from the University of Arizona in Tucson. She taught for many years at the university level in Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Shows • Animals and Elements, Marigold Arts, Santa Fe NM 2006 • Landscapes of Enchantment, Marigold Arts, Santa Fe NM 2006 • Animals Are Wild, Marigold Arts, Santa Fe NM 2005 • Masterworks of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM 2005 • Featured Five X 2, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos NM 2005 • Traditional Arts, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos NM 2004 • Featured Five X 2, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos NM 2004 • Solo Show, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos NM 2004 • Traditional Arts, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos NM 2003 • 5000 Flowers, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos NM 2002 • Anything That Flies, Art Center Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos 2002 • Art from the Flames, Los Alamos NM 2001 • Historic Santa Fe Foundation Art Show, Santa Fe NM 1996 • Santa Fe Ambiance, Boulder, CO 1986 • Jack Dennis, Jackson, WY 1985 • Solo Show, First Nat’l Bank of Santa Fe, Santa Fe NM 1979	Caiman, 18" x 24" The Animal Eye Paintings Although animals most frequently regard eye contact as a sign of aggression, we associate gazing into a creature’s eyes as some mysterious, magical connectedness with its inner reality, its soul. Yet even when we capture, study, or tame these wild beings, the essence of their lives remains a mystery. Perhaps there is an ancient bond that explains our attraction to wildlife. We don’t have to justify an animal’s existence by its usefulness to us. Its right to exist comes from that shared bond. As Art Wolfe puts it, “Conservation is not, ultimately, about saving this species or that one. It is about saving the process, power, and mystery of creation…everyone alive is an environmentalist. Some realise it, and some don’t.”