Gallery with a Cause 'Movers and Shakers' supports New Mexico Cancer Center Foundation

Gallery with a Cause will showcase 350 works of art by New Mexico artists who want to give back to the community with its “Movers and Shakers” spring exhibition.

Forty percent of each art sale at Gallery with a Cause goes to the New Mexico Cancer Center Foundation, supporting patients’ nonmedical needs while they are receiving treatment.

Marcia Rackstraw, one of the artists presenting their work at the gallery, has contributed to the gallery for four years and said she looks forward to contributing to a good cause each year.

“It’s sort of a refreshing difference in that it not only decorates that building where the patients are and gives them a beautiful place to sit and beautiful things to look at, but then the money from the sales also goes to that organization as well, which is doing such incredibly good work,” Rackstraw said.

Rackstraw is an oil and charcoal painter who focuses on animals, the outdoors and inspiration she gets from Japanese artworks. Her latest series focuses on bright pastel colors and highlights goldfish floating through ponds with various foliage.

“Goldfish are particularly interesting to me, water and goldfish because of the silence ... They are in a separate, silent world, which is kind of fascinating to me,” she said. “I like working with space that’s very shallow, so that the image sort of comes out into viewer space, rather than inviting the viewer in.”

Photographer Dennis Chamberlain captures New Mexico in various hues and lights. Chamberlain is president of the Corrales Arts Center and teaches photography with the Professional Photographers of America.

One of Chamberlain’s photos, “Taos Art Gallery” was a spur of the moment photo that he said worked just right with the lighting.

“I just enhanced some of the colors, and I think I actually even opened one of the gates a little bit more digitally than it was to get a better composition,” he said. “This particular photo happens to be infused on aluminum, and that process brings out the colors and the vividness and the sharpness of the photograph.”

Later, Chamberlain would learn the large bronze bell featured on the top of the building was stolen shortly after the photo was taken.

Other works created by Chamberlain include photography from across the Southwest. His photo “A Lazy Afternoon in the Canyon” highlights landscapes and features three horses grazing among the rock formations.

Gallery with a Cause 'Movers and Shakers' supports New Mexico Cancer Center Foundation

Gallery with a Cause is located inside of the New Mexico Cancer Center in Albuquerque.