FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Randall Gann, Public Information Officer
505.252.6869 
Email: randall.gann@state.nm.us

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is pleased to announce an exhibition featuring cyanotype prints of flora and fauna specimens from the museum collection by Marietta Patricia Leis. The exhibit opens Saturday, April 26th and runs through Sunday, August 31st.

Visitors not only get to see Leis’s beautiful prints, but the work also showcases many specimens from the museum collection that are not on permanent exhibition and, thus, not always available to be seen by the public. Fish, coral, a bald eagle, and a whooping crane are among the fascinating specimens that were carefully selected and reproduced through the amazing cyanotype process. And drawing on her extensive travel experience, the exhibition will also include images from the Portuguese Island of Flores and images from her time as Artist in Residence in Thailand.

Cyanotype prints, also known as sun-print photography prints, involve a process that begins by arranging an object on chemically treated paper and then exposing the paper to sunlight. The print is developed in a darkened room by rinsing it in water. 

Marietta Patricia Leis’s work is shown internationally and is in many public collections. She has lived and worked in New York and Los Angeles, and she has an MFA from the University of New Mexico.

A contributing artist, photographer David Vogel, will be exhibiting an original video and still images with his unique perspective of the cyanotype process and the specimens. These two artists live and work in Albuquerque.

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science preserves and interprets the distinctive natural and scientific heritage of our state through extraordinary collections, research, exhibits, and programs designed to ignite a passion for lifelong learning.

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