Darren Vigil Gray

Keyes Art is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Jicarilla Apache artist and musician
Darren Vigil Gray (b. 1959).
Since the 1980s, Gray has been known for dynamic works that probe personal and tribal mythologies, portraiture, the broad landscape of northern New Mexico, and abstraction. Renown critic and curator Lucy Lippard said of his work, “Gray has found his true place in the act of painting, in brushstrokes informed by dreams and visions that transcend the personal and the local.” Indeed, Gray’s paintings circumvent a strict tribal ethos while accessing the deep mythological current that runs through his psyche. In this, the artist’s first exhibition on Long Island’s east end, works on exhibit include paintings on canvas and paper that offer a glimpse into his unique aesthetic.

Darren Vigil Gray grew up among the mountains and mesas of Dulce, New Mexico on the Jicarilla Apache reservation. His father was the tribal chairman as well as a country western guitarist, rancher, and rodeo cowboy; his mother studied to be a coloratura soprano, encouraging Gray and his brother to learn piano and drums. He always knew that music would be a part of his future, but his affinity for visual art came later. At age 15, he begged his mother to let him leave the reservation to attend Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts, a tribal college. Gray had never so much as drawn a picture, but soon found himself transformed by the freedom to explore a wide cultural perspective while diving into a new visual universe. He later studied with the acclaimed Native American artist T. C. Cannon, whose mentorship would provide the young artist with a lifelong mantra: “create your own mythology.”  

Gray’s personal mythology is one that has evolved through fidelity to his own identity. His visual aesthetic draws mightily on intuition and “blood memory,” a term coined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Gray’s father-in-law, N. Scott Momaday. For Gray, “blood memory” is more than a touchstone – it is a wormhole through which his vivid dreams and visions have allowed access to a distinct mythic realm. Momaday has referred to it as the ability to “remember things beyond our corporeal existence.” In the studio, Gray approaches the canvas without preconception, working spontaneously to locate content, imagery, and an active color dialogue within the process. This sense of immediacy is critical to his practice, and he proceeds on the canvas as if divining imagery from a separate reality or another time and place. Like a conduit between parallel worlds, his improvisations often conjure a symbolism that is both intrinsic and mystical. “It’s an energy field,” said Gray, speaking of his paintings, “that’s what comes back to you.” 

Gray’s personal history has also been integral to his vibrant landscape paintings of the pine-covered bluffs and streaked mesas in northern New Mexico. In Blue Clouds Over My Desert, 2021, his overview of the landscape is wide, as if seen through the eyes of a giant bird. Drifting between red ochre, black, and moody greens and yellows, the palette is invigorated by rapid brushstrokes and staccato gestures that seem to channel the earth’s energy.

In The Beauty of Mystery Light, 2021, Gray examines the mysticism he apprehends chiefly through the act of painting. Here, aspects of ritual, death, and transcendence commingle with the skull of a buffalo that dominates the foreground.
Butterflies ascend as if released from the painterly turmoil while a cortege of mystics anchor the cacophony midground. The composition is fiery – even combustible – with muted turquoise, hot oranges, and yellows that allude to a parallel, often unknowable, world. Since the dawn of the nuclear age in the 1940s,

the Archuleta Mesa, where Gray was raised, has been known for its hundreds of unexplained aerial phenomena, low-flying lights, and a wide array of mysterious sightings, lending even more allure to this enigmatic place.

Gray has always been a dedicated musician, with such keen drumming skills that he has been invited to perform across parts of the country and abroad. This affinity between the visual and the aural has deepened his understanding of both genres while introducing him to many of the most gifted musicians of our time. Some four decades ago, he managed to arrange a meeting with the famed guitarist, songwriter, and producer, Robbie Robertson, at a Hamburger Hamlet in Brentwood. After sharing a few Coronas on a hot California day, they ventured to Gray’s powder-blue Toyota flatbed where he pulled out a few new paintings. Robertson was so impressed that he purchased one right there in the parking lot, and their lifelong friendship was born. Since then, his art has been prized by myriad guitarists, singers, and songwriters, many of whom have become not only his avid collectors but devoted friends. 

Darren Vigil Gray’s art has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums across the U.S. and abroad. In 2002, The Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe mounted a 20-year retrospective of his art. Gray’s work is represented in the collections of numerous public and private institutions including the Denver Art Museum, CO; Tucson Museum of Art, AZ; The National Museum of American Arts, DC; Gilcrease Museum, OK; Bruce Museum, CT; Museum of the American West, ID; Stamford Museum, CT; and the Museum of the American Indian, NY.