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In 2005, I attended the first solo exhibition in New York City of the artist Caledonia Curry, better known as Swoon.

Curry and I were both in our 20s then, both living in Brooklyn, and, although we didn鈥檛 know each other, we were part of the same cultural milieu.

Her show at Deitch Projects featured monumental figurative paper cutouts 鈥� like the ones she had been wheat-pasting all over the city 鈥� as well as a ramshackle wooden structure that referenced our crumbling urban environment. Like most Deitch Projects openings back then, it was a party. Skateboarders, squatters, art school weirdos and anarchist punks rubbed elbows with fancy art collector types while the hipster band Japanther played.

Some of my friends at the opening were trust fund kids who dressed in dirty, ripped-up clothes as an aesthetic choice, while others 鈥� including me and Curry 鈥� had actually come from very humble backgrounds. All of us, I think, experienced what鈥檚 known in French as 鈥渘ostalgie de la boue鈥� 鈥� an attraction to grittiness, grime and squalor. But if my trust fund hipster friends were 鈥渟lumming鈥� for the sheer adventure of it, I was living in a rougher neighborhood mainly because it was all I could afford, and also because it reminded me of home. I hadn鈥檛 grown up in Brooklyn, but I had grown up in a trash-strewn neighborhood in South Florida where crack addicts wandered the streets, so neighborhoods like that were where I felt most comfortable. Curry鈥檚 art 鈥� both in the streets and in the gallery 鈥� held up a mirror to the rapidly-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods we lived in. It also contributed to that gentrification process, although we probably didn鈥檛 realize it at the time.

Curry鈥檚 current show at Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe, 鈥淪woon: Into the Forest,鈥� references poverty and drug addiction, but in a rural context, rather than an urban one. Those who are more familiar with Curry鈥檚 early work might also be surprised by her turn to fluorescent, Lisa Frank-inspired colors and whimsical motifs, including a winged unicorn and a purple narwhal. Part autobiography, part fairy tale, 鈥淚nto the Forest鈥� includes drawings, paintings, a stop-motion animated film and an 88-card oracle deck 鈥� all based on her less-than-idyllic childhood experiences in a swampy part of Florida. As in the 2012 film 鈥淏easts of the Southern Wild,鈥� Curry mixes Southern gothic and magical realist elements to show how children can create their own enchanted worlds even under extremely challenging conditions.

At the center of Curry鈥檚 narrative are the Sibylant Sisters. Their name is a conflation of the word 鈥渟ibilant鈥� 鈥� a hissing or hushing sound 鈥� and 鈥淪ibyl,鈥� a type of ancient Greek prophetess. One of the cards in Curry鈥檚 oracle deck is 鈥淭he Sibyl,鈥� which she describes as a knower of ancient secrets, 鈥渨hispering like wind through the tops of trees.鈥� Curry writes: 鈥淪pooky as she was fascinating, when Sibyl came calling her urgent message was this: you can accept the gifts handed down through your family without the burden of their curse.鈥�

Curry does not shy away from the darker, more disturbing facts of her upbringing, but she finds healing in art. She uses the mystical tradition of an oracle deck to explore archetypal figures 鈥� real and imaginary 鈥� from her childhood, and to let other people delve into their own subconscious selves. The cards include 鈥淐rayons 鈥� Inspiration,鈥� 鈥淏athtub Goo 鈥� Obstacles鈥� and 鈥淕litter Stickers 鈥� Luck,鈥� along with various witches, warriors, ogres and magic toads. Enchantingly beautiful and sometimes humorous, they contain just enough grotesquerie to remind us that they were born from adversity.

Other artists have created oracle decks. Salvador Dal铆 designed a surrealist tarot deck in the 1970s, and the art colective Hilma鈥檚 Ghost exhibited a tarot deck at the 2021 Armory Sbow in New York City that was inspired by the mystical abstract paintings of early-20th-century artist Hilma af Klint. Novel as those decks were, they were still tarot decks with meanings that have been established through centuries of use. Because Curry鈥檚 deck is not a tarot deck, and she developed the imagery for each card through an intuitive process of memory and imagination, the meanings of her cards are less fixed. She extends the same freedom of intuitive self-reflection to her viewers that she herself brought to the making of the cards. And she wants people to actually use them as part of their everyday lives. Priced at $50, they are relatively affordable.

Many folks, myself included, use tarot and other forms of cartomancy, not necessarily to predict the future, but as a therapeutic tool for open-ended self-exploration and creative problem-solving. I understand the perspective of rationalists who believe that cartomancy is a superstitious pseudoscience, because I used to think that way, too. If you鈥檙e a hard-nosed rationalist, 鈥淚nto the Forest鈥� might not appeal to you. But if you can set aside your knee-jerk opposition and give it a chance, you might find that Curry鈥檚 use of the oracle deck as an art form opens new possibilities of creative expression and psychological depth.

Curry wants to take you on a journey, and you either go along with her or not. But you can鈥檛 enter a show like this with an attitude of suspicious judgment. Like the films of Matthew Barney, the installations of Ebony G. Patterson or, indeed, the fairy tale art of Alphonse Mucha from a century ago, 鈥淚nto the Forest鈥� is an all-enveloping world. If we let ourselves get lost in it, we just might come out the other side a little wiser. But we have to let our guard down and go where it leads.

Turner Carroll has devoted their main gallery space to the new work, but in their second room, they have included a number of rare pieces dating back as early as 2008. Several use old wooden doors or windows as a support onto which intricate, slightly yellowed paper designs are collaged. The contrast between the yellowed paper and the wood recalls medieval Rajasthani doors inlaid with ivory, and it鈥檚 rather impressive that Curry is able to suggest such precious materials while remaining completely unprecious in her actual materials and techniques. It鈥檚 just pasted paper, after all, and she was originally making these ephemeral interventions outdoors on the walls of buildings. Over time, especially after a hard rain, they would simply disintegrate.

I was grateful to see these older works in the same exhibition as works from 2026. Her etching-like illustrational style has remained a constant, but the colors, motifs and materials have undergone a sea change 鈥� particularly in the new stop-motion animation, which is absolutely extraordinary. Even as the work has become more colorfull and fantastical, it has not, for the most part, lost its grittiness or its emotional poignancy.

What I respect above all about Curry is her dedication to reaching ordinary people through art. In the early days, she did that by wheat-pasting the art all over her neighborhood 鈥� and then neighborhoods around the world. With the oracle deck, she has created something more intimate that people can keep in their pockets and share with their friends. Because the new work is so intensely personal, it may seem to represent an inward turn, yet it remains as socially oriented as ever, and perhaps even more accessible. It鈥檚 as if the more deeply she journeys into her private, interior world, the more relatable it becomes.

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .