Portrait by David Fenton

For Luis Tapia, the northern New Mexican tradition of folk and religious imagery can be stereotyped and static—or it can be as dynamic and current as the culture from which it comes. Tapia, a “totally homegrown” Santa Fe artist, as he puts it, has earned national acclaim for translating complex contemporary issues into compelling and often humorous versions of the carved figures he has known all his life. And while his work often reflects local and regional realities, it also encompasses larger questions—of religion, family and identity, for example—that affect us all.

Born in 1950, Tapia grew up with a limited experience of his Latino heritage, rather than a vital understanding. “In the 1920s and ’30s my parents were guided to drop a lot of our traditions, so by the time I started thinking about these things, I had the sharp realization that I didn’t really know about my culture,” he recalls. Self-taught in art, he began researching and carving santos, or saints, continuing a practice that began in 17th-century Spanish Colonial New Mexico.

In the early 1970s, Tapia exhibited his work in Santa Fe’s Spanish Market, which at the time encouraged carvings that were unpainted or featured deliberately distressed surfaces. But he also was restoring old santos, and in doing so discovered that beneath the layers of varnish and age were signs of strikingly bright colors. When he began adding vivid hues to his own carvings, and further deviating from the established style by creating multi-figured pieces, he was asked to leave Spanish Market.

As it turns out, one door closing led to others opening. This Master of the Southwest’s award-winning work is now in the collections of the Museum of American Folk Art in New York, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art and National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., among others.

The artist is widely credited with reviving the use of color among New Mexican santeros and folk carvers; indeed, Smithsonian researchers later verified Tapia’s belief that early santos and furniture were brightly painted. “Luis set the art form in a whole new direction. He’s not only a significant Southwest artist, but a significant American artist,” notes Tey Marianna Nunn, director and chief curator of the Visual Arts Program at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, N.M.

Among signature aspects of Tapia’s work are elements of social commentary and, often, delightful surprises. State-of-the-Art Sebastiaña, for instance, is an updated version of the traditional Carreta de la Muerte, or Death Cart, driven by the skeletal death figure Doña Sebastiaña. Holding a cell phone and a remote control device, Sebastiaña is portrayed as having received a call from God, who instructs her to zap the next victim with her remote, rather than the customary arrow. “She’s having a good time. She’s cruising. She’s in control,” the artist explains, his warm, serious brown eyes lighting up in a smile.

“I like my work to be expressive and to invite the viewer to look at it closely. There are all sorts of little things you don’t catch at first.”

Photo by Addison Doty Bendita tu eres entre todas Las Mujeres, carved and painted wood, 11 3/4" high x 30 1/2" wide x 12 3/4" deep

Photo by Addison Doty Doña Sebastiaña Relaxes After a Hard Day at the Office, carved and painted wood, 35" high x 22" wide x 20" deep