Otero Arts presents Sue Nichols’ “The Light of La Luz” at Artspace August 2026

ALAMOGORDO — Otero Arts will open “The Light of La Luz,” an exhibition of paintings and stained glass by New Mexico artist Sue Nichols, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, August 7, at Otero Artspace, 1118 Indiana Avenue at 12th Street.

The show gathers 33 works in oil, watercolor, and stained glass drawn from a career spent looking closely at one corner of the world. Nichols did not come to the land by birth. Born in Carlsbad and raised in Alamogordo, she was a young woman working at the Ruidoso Downs racetrack when she married her high school sweetheart and moved to his family’s orchard ranch in the Sacramento Mountains near La Luz. She has remained there ever since, and for decades that ground has been her central subject.

The exhibition ranges widely while holding to a single sensibility. Paintings of the working land—among them “Way of Life” and the oil painting “Hell or High Water”—share the room with wildlife studies such as “Late Summer Meadows,” quiet still lifes drawn from her own rooms and gardens, and figurative pieces that catch ordinary people in unguarded moments. Also on view are works in stained glass, the discipline Nichols has practiced for decades through her studio, Canyon Glassworks, including the three-panel Spirit Dancers screen and the Peace panel.

“I try not to be too specific in the narrative, so the viewer can complete the story and have their own relationship with the work,” Nichols says. “Much of the world I paint is quietly vanishing. My hope is to preserve a little of its beauty and its history, and to help someone feel it the way I do.”

Nichols earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts at New Mexico State University. She has completed more than 70 commissioned stained-glass works and is a trusted source for stained-glass restoration throughout southern New Mexico. Her work is held in private collections and shown in galleries across the state.

Otero Artspace is open Thursday through Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. The exhibition continues through Saturday, August 29.

The show is supported by NM Arts, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit oteroarts.org.

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