THE LENA WALL
About
The Lena Wall displays temporary exhibitions of wheatpasted and painted artwork on the side of the Cloud Cliff building on the corner of Lena Street and Second Street (1805 Second St.) in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The project is made possible through the generosity of Willem Malten and Stephen Auger, and numerous individual donors,
The jetsonorama mural (2024) is possible with generous support through sponsorship from The City of Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department.
The Three Sisters Collective mural is supported by individual donors and the Rauschenberg Foundation. Paints generously donated for the project by Artisan Santa Fe and Dunn-Edwards..
501(c)(3) support from In The Family Way.
Donations to support The Lena Wall are welcome: https://gofund.me/7426de99
The Lena Wall is curated, organized, facilitated, and produced by Matthew Chase-Daniel and The Lena Wall Advisory Committee
Matthew Chase-Daniel was born in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1965 and lived in New York City in the1960s. He later raised tadpoles, minnows, and a raccoon, learned to fall off a horse, and hunt morels, wild violets, and rainbow trout in the Berkshire Mountains. In the mid and late 1980s, Chase-Daniel spent three years at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York (B.A.), and three years in Paris, France, where he studied cultural anthropology, photography, and ethnographic film production (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes & Sorbonne). Since 1989, he has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, renovating old houses, growing green chard, and making family and art. His photography and sculpture have been exhibited across the U.S. and in Europe. He is represented in Santa Monica, California by Craig Krull Gallery. He is the co-founder, co-owner, and co-curator of Axle Contemporary, a mobile artspace, a radio/podcast host at Coffee and Culture, curator of The Lena Wall, and a member of the Railyard Art Committee, all in Santa Fe.
The Lena Wall Advisory Committee
Committee members review, recommend and advise on submissions and invitations for new projects on the wall, and serve as ambassadors to their communities. Members listed below.
Chip Thomas (jetsonorama)
Thomas is an internationally-exhibiting photographer and large-scale wheat-paste muralist-artist. Thomas worked as a doctor on the Navajo Nation for 36 years, until 2023. For the past twelve years he has been making and exhibiting art, which he now pursues full-time. He created a temporary wheat-paste project for The Lena Wall in 2024. www.jetsonorama.net
Autumn Dawn Gomez
Autumn Dawn Gomez (Taos/Comanche) is the lead artist for the Three Sister Collective's temporary mural, I Am Life, Creator of Worlds, presented at The Lena Wall in 2024. Gomez was born in Oga PoGeh Owingeh, Santa Fe, NM and calls the Northern Rio Grande Valley home, from Albuquerque to Taos. Gomez studied art and writing at IAIA and then went on to supporting Pueblo Youth through Tewa Women United. In 2017, Autumn co founded Three Sisters Collective, an Indigenous Women and Femme centered art and community care collective looking to create safe spaces for all Indigenous women and their families in Oga P’Ogeh/Santa Fe. As Art Director, Autumn creates public murals and curating accessible art experiences for community members. www.pimikwusii.com
Godfrey Reggio
Prints of Reggio's whiteboard "scripts" for Once Within a Time were exhibited on The Lena Wall in 2023. Reggio is widely known for his wordless filmography, especially the trilogy of Koyaanisqatsi: “Life Out of Balance”; Powaqqatsi: “Life in Transformation”; and Naqoyqatsi: “Life as War”. Reggio’s latest film, Once Within a Time, was produced by Steven Soderbergh & Alexander Rodnyansky and had its world premiere at Santa Fe International Film Festival in October 2022. The festival awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award. The film and its title are the keystone for the curation of SITE Santa Fe's upcoming "International" opening in June, 2025. For many years, he has collaborated with the composer Philip Glass on the musical and orchestral soundtracks that augment Reggio’s wordless films. He also collaborates with Jon Kane, a fellow filmmaker.
Amelia Bauer
The Lena Wall exhibited a series of Bauer's photographs, from The Wintering series in 2022. Bauer earned a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art in New York in 2001. She is the executive director of Noise for Now.
Proposals or press or questions, contact: matthew@chasedaniel.com