BIOGRAPHY
Colette Hosmer is an internationally renowned sculptor who creates and resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a contemporary naturalist who is celebrated globally for her monumental outdoor sculptures and site-specific work utilizing organic materials.
Born in 1946, Hosmer grew up in a small town in rural North Dakota. She studied art at the University of North Dakota and at Linn Benton College. Hosmer served as the director of both Shidoni Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the Neurotechnologies Institute in San Francisco, California. Though she had been a practicing artist for decades, Hosmer began her full time career in the arts at the age of 44. Since then Hosmer’s work has been exhibited in prestigious museums throughout the world. Her work is among the permanent collections of Salt lake City!, City of Xiamen, China Tianjin, China; City of Yanqing, China; University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM; The Albuquerque Museum – Albuquerque, NM: The Eitlejorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN and Contemporary Artspace – Potsdam, Germany. Private collections include Richard Dreyfus, Michael Keaton and the estate of Carrie Fisher. Museum, university and international exhibitions include: the China National Museum of Fine Arts; the National Museum for Women of the Arts, Washington, D.C., USA; The New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA and The Chinese European Art Center, Xiamen, China.
The artist was the focus of a Voice of American documentary film, entitled “Colette Hosmer, A True Original,” and her contributions to her community’s art sphere have been so profound that the Santa Fe mayor proclaimed June 5, 2009, “Colette Hosmer Day” in her honor.
ARTnews, Art & Auction, Sculpture Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Sculpture Magazine China and Potsdamer Stadtkurier, Germany are only a few that have featured the artist and her work.
Between 2000-2012 she accomplished 10 international residencies in China. She is currently writing a book covering her experiences abroad, and the influence of her travels and experiences on her artwork.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“For nature, as we know, is at once without and within us. Art is the mirror at the interface.” -Antoine Bourdelle, French Expressionist Painter and Sculptor, 1861 –1929
I was romanced by art from an early age, but the natural sciences presented tough competition for my choice of vocation. Eventually, I found myself making art by utilizing reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals and earth that I’d collected and processed. Through my work, I came to discover that humankind was reflected in these elemental materials — that I was being offered a glimpse into the mysteries that connect one thing to another.
We are of the earth and separate from it only by illusion, yet we humans increasingly isolate ourselves from the rest of life. An understanding of life as overlapping environments is disappearing, and instead of recognizing ourselves as part of the landscape, we stand apart and view the world around us as “other”. Albert Einstein observed, “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest. This delusion is a kind of prison for us.”
Art, because it emerges from this universal center, frees us from our delusion. Art puts “man” back into the equation.
