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My Little Phony & Bandana-rama to be shown Langer Gallery

The Taube Museum of Art will be holding a reception showcasing work by Doug Pfliger on November 4, from 5-7 p.m. Pfliger’s show, My Little Phony & Bandana-rama is located in the Langer Gallery, according to information provided by the Taube.

Pfliger is currently enjoying retirement in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His first visit to the City Different was Christmas of 1984. At that time, he was walking around the plaza and tossed his hat up in the air Mary Tyler Moore style and announced he would live there one day. It took him a few years, but in in 2018 it became reality. In March of 2020, the Pandemic locked down the state. People ask Pfliger if he found the isolation difficult, and he would say no. Since Pfliger is pretty much an introvert and a bit of a loner anyway, he found the isolation conducive to art making, and several series were able to bloom. Many of the series had been simple notes, observations, reference images, and thumbnail sketches incubating for months or in some cases years in a sketchbook before seeing the light of day.

The concept for Bandana-rama resulted when Pfliger purchased a bandana from the ’50s or ’60s from one of his favorite vintage stores, according to the information provided by the gallery. He was attracted to the graphics on the faded fabric. The iconic cowboy and bucking bronco emblazoned in the corners of that bandana feature prominently in one of the pieces. As the series incubated, he noticed such cowboy imagery on a regular basis. He was even amused to find the bucking bronco image regularly repeating on a relative’s shower curtain. The finding and documentation of those images became the core for the Bandana-rama series, and of course the title for the exhibit is a play off of the 1980s English Pop group.

“The My Little Phony (MLP) series started when I first stumbled across the plethora of photographs of Cowboy wannabes on the Internet. Further research revealed that the photographs were mostly taken by itinerant photographers who traversed cities and neighborhoods with ponies in tow and used their entrepreneurial enthusiasm to coerce parents into plopping down a few of their hard-earned bucks to record their kid for posterity as cowboy. Those grainy, often out of focus images are now plied on the Internet in the name of nostalgia for those seeking to reconnect with a simpler time. I found the numerous images of child and pony humorous, a bit hokey, poignant, and a bit sad. It is the sad aspect that I wanted to change with a more light-hearted take on them. The My Little Phony title is a play on the popular ’80s colorful plastic equines with brushable mane and tail. Those equines apparently keep evolving to stay current in popular culture. Hopefully my renditions will give you recollection and make you smile,” Pfliger said.

The reception is free and open to the public with wine and hors-d’oeuvres being provided. Also showing, in the Linha Gallery, is the work of Wendy Kimble titled “Spiritual Media”.

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