The Historic Santa Fe Foundation (HSFF) is pleased to announce a pop-up exhibition of recent ceramic works by Robert King.  King’s works will be on view August 13-26.

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ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This August, during the SWAIA Indian Market, the gallery at El Zaguán will feature a special two-week pop-up exhibition of ceramic works by Robert King (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma). King’s practice is deeply rooted in land, process, and material. He sources, hand-processes, and makes extensive use of wild clay, rocks, minerals, and wood ash gathered from the terrain surrounding his home in Galisteo, NM.

All pieces on display were created within the last year and embody the physical and energetic essence of their origins. Each piece is shaped through repetition, fire, and the gradual knowledge gained from working directly with raw materials. The five works presented offer a focused glimpse into King’s broader and ongoing practice, which is grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems and explores the relationship between body, earth, and time.

Additional work by King will be featured in Mud, Bone, Blood, Ice at Duende Gallery in Galisteo, opening August 30, 2025.

Also on view at the Gallery at El Zaguán is Elizabeth Chiles | Stardust Dialogues

Contact: Anne Kelly at anne@historicsantafe.org or call 505.983.2567 for more information.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Robert King (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is a ceramic artist and physician whose work

engages clay as a site of memory, transformation, and formal inquiry. Working extensively with

locally sourced materials, King creates vessels that foreground restraint, balance, and depth. His

minimalist aesthetic, grounded in deep material knowledge, reflects a conceptual approach that

resists categorical definition. Blending abstraction, cultural reference, and philosophical inquiry,

his hand-built forms seem to emerge as much from geological time as from human intention.

King’s practice moves through and beyond pottery traditions, positioning clay as collaborator,

witness, and teacher. His work investigates the layered relationships between body and land,

creation and destruction, past and present. Exhibited and collected widely (including the

American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA), National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts

(NCECA), SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market, Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA Santa Fe), Phillips

Gallery, Cara Romero Gallery, and the Tia Collection) his pieces have been recognized for their

quiet strength and contemplative depth. He is the next Native Artist in Residence at the Denver

Art Museum (September 2025), and the founder and curator of Duende Gallery in Galisteo, NM.

King lives and works in Galisteo, where he is also active as a mentor and educator committed to

sustaining intergenerational knowledge and creative autonomy.

Contact: Anne Kelly at anne@historicsantafe.org or call 505.983.2567 for more information.