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Cynthia Huff of TAOS, New Mexico has a diverse and dynamic artistic background.  After nearly twenty years of successfully working in ceramics and sculpture she began her current focus on painting, collage and 2-dimensional work in the early 1990's.  She has been awarded individual artist grants from the states of Tennessee and New Jersey and her work has been exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally. Huff is also an accomplished photographer and potter.  

Cynthia Huff of TAOS, New Mexico has a diverse and dynamic artistic background.  After nearly twenty years of successfully working in ceramics and sculpture she began her current focus on painting, collage and 2-dimensional work in the early 1990's.  She has been awarded individual artist grants from the states of Tennessee and New Jersey and her work has been exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally. Huff is also an accomplished photographer and potter.  

For more information about Cynthia Huff, please see the Exhibition Record.

 

2014-2017  Back to  TAOS, NM Studio after a few years in Santa Fe, San Diego and Mexico and time on the road exploring the USA, Mexico and Canada in a motorhome. Beaches, palm trees, cactus, succulents, Mexican imagery,visits to many art museums, national and state parks have provided me with files of new images to bring to my next series of paintings. Stay tuned for the new ones!

2011-2013   The year 2011 involved a move from Taos to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The new series of paintings started in summer 2011 are a continuation of 48 x 48 canvases in oil and also a series of 24 x 24 oil on panel.   The paintings are very minimal and monochromatic with attention to linear elements and light. Although non-objective abstracts, there is an impression of landscape elements.  No longer in the silent and open spaces of Taos, the quiet chatter of city life reveals itself subtly in the smaller series.

 

2008-2010  Huff continues to work in a very expressionistic direction, now with 48" x48" as a typical canvas size. This larger format has been advantageous to her spontanaeous and free style.  The SILENCE and OPEN SPACES of Northern New Mexico are ongoing influences and her paintings are becoming more minimal and larger.

2006-2008  These paintings convey a personal language that incorporate spontaneous and expressionistic techniques and experimental processes.  Huff embraces a rawness in her rendering and frequently juxtaposes symbolic motifs and historic references.  Subject matter is typically transformed into visual signs, symbolic allusions, ironic associations and metaphors that link and suggest.  Her most recent work reflects the open spaces and quiet.

2005  These  paintings have a humorous bent and incorporate ideas of the food chain, the animals involved in this chain and luck.  Using the process of random selection, images were gathered and filtered; ideas accepted or rejected and used as interpretive tools.  Random selection has been used in the past to foretell the future and is the basis for what some call intuition.  Huff intuitively chose symbols and images that suggested luck, fortune telling and patterns of divination.  

 

2002-2004  This series of paintings were influenced by whimsical late 19th century Italian sculpture called chalkware and turn of the century children’s nursery rhymes.  These paintings represented tasteless knick-knacks to some and sweet memories to others.

 

1990's  Early paintings included symbols and inspiration from her travels in Mali, Senegal, France, Italy, Belgium and Holland.  Many were religious in nature as well as lyrical and narrative.  Changes in palette and subject were influenced by architecture and religious imagery.

 

EDUCATION 

BFA from Herron School Art, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana

MFA from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee