Bobby Beals Presents…
Tender Roots featuring Sienna Luna
Venue: The Horseshoe Gallery
Date: March 21, 2025
Time: 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Sienna Luna offers five paintings that explore a moment in time surrounded by the enriching future and the fertile past, bringing a heartbeat to be seen visually for her upcoming solo show at The Horseshoe Gallery on March 21st beginning at 4pm and lasting till 7pm; Bobby Beals Presents… Tender Roots featuring Sienna Luna.
Arts writer, Luna Van Arsdale expands on Tender Roots with the following…
Sienna Luna’s rooting, budding and blossoming have been tended to by her grandmother’s hands as well as the lands and spirits of New Mexico. It is peculiar, as, from a birds eye view, the lands of the high desert are carved with arroyos that look much like the hands of our elders. These carvings are vessels for the creative life force, containment for the vital nature, the divine inspiration, that which expands our horizon yet affirms our tether to our center. It is in this very tension, between expansion and contraction, that the show Tender Roots began to bloom. The thread weaving these pieces together is that of roots — flowers, families, and identities. Sienna is particularly sensitive to the unground mycelial network that, obscured from our sight, allows her many plants to speak to one another through their roots. In this way, the paintings speak to one another, tethered by energetics the naked eye may not be able to see, but the sensitive soul can feel. A dynamic story unfurls here, whispering of an experience that is universal, yet so deeply personal.
These are totemic emblems of life’s reemergence after a time of great hardship & strife. It is in the Winter months that we tend to the fires, where the shadows stretch longer than the sun and the chilly weather tempers our movement. This season of hibernation is one of devotion, of tending to the wounds that have remained opened. Through the nurturing of hands, we call back our pieces, we accept our crosses, we let die what must die, so we may cultivate a truthful sense of self once again. As the Spring rolls in, we see what has bloomed through this time of tender, synthesized evolution. The paintings of Tender Roots are totems to this emerging season of Spring; “love letters to healing, growing and blooming — to the desert I grew up in and my ancestors here,” as Sienna said.
The first painting that struck me was that of the Sacred Heart with a sunset at its center, capturing the moment as the sun slowly descends, it’s last illumination of the Sandia Mountains before the last light fades from within Arroyo Hondo. Gazing at this piece, I had a most visceral vision of being in a car with this flaming heart as my rearview mirror. As I shared this vision, Sienna shared that her Grandmother, the woman who raised her, just recently left New Mexico, moving west to Arizona as she sought the care that family could offer her there. As this story was brought into the sphere, new meanings took root where the view, descending into the rearview, is ever enduring as it is encompassed by Love that is Eternal. A cerulean blue flame crowns the heart acting as beacon and torch for the life immortal — an enduring symbol whose blue color, that of the hottest flame, mirrors the depth of the emotion. Though her grandmother may have ventured from this land, she lives on in these mountains, arroyos, soil, and sunsets. The second painting shows a hand holding poppies and hawthorn plants, the glove’s lace unfurls into roots, reaching deep into the layered soils. To Sienna, lace is the human version of a spiderweb, a study of potentiality where each strand that emanates out from the center offers a timeline one may venture. In this way, the many roots that the lace creates, anchors the hand to the spirit of the land & the ancestors whose many lives have been lived. The flowers offer a more ephemeral, celestial presence — cut flowers are of particular fascination as they appeal to the finite of being; the luxury of doing something purely for beauty. Victorian Valentine’s day cards often shared similar motifs where a hand offered flowers to their beloved, the namescrawled in curling letters within their tender folds. This piece acts as an ode to the courage of allowing one’s self to be seen.
The third painting shows a rabbit curving into itself, an invisible spiral unfurling from its center, with wild roses growing up from the rich soil, to surround the precious creatura, — a totem of Spring. Sienna was woken from a dream with the distinct images of a rabbit with the light of dawn projecting through its ears. This blush light of a new day acts as nature’s x-ray, showing that which we cannot readily see, namely the veins and nerves that connect our entire being in a dynamic body of receptivity and sensitivity. The imagery of the rabbit cradled by the roses is one that hints towards the vulnerable nature of new birth; the roses, despite their protective thorns, are still delicate blooms.
I will leave the last two paintings shrouded in a bit of mystery so that your imagination may take flight — an invitation for you to attune your subliminal senses, to plug into this root system. As you attune, where do these pieces take you, what do you feel, sense, and see? May these symbols and knowings over-light your life, revealing themselves your curiosity.
All are welcome to attend Tender Roots featuring Sienna Luna on March 21, 2025; 4-7pm. For more information, please contact bobby@bealsandco.com.