Daniel Soltero "Koshare Eclipse" Acrylic on Canvas, 2025 — Las Cruces, NM View Watchlist >
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Lot # G520
System ID # 30416473
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Daniel Soltero "Koshare Eclipse" Acrylic on Canvas, 2025 — Las Cruces, NM
Three striped Koshare figures — the sacred clowns of Pueblo ceremony, rendered here with cornhusk horns, kohl-ringed eyes, and black-and-white body paint — move across a scorched crimson field beneath a total eclipse. The composition reads as ritual in motion: one figure hurls a gourd rattle overhead, another crouches mid-stride juggling melon and fruit, and the third bends low in a gold ceremonial skirt. Cast shadows pool long and dark across the red ground, anchoring the dance to earth while the ringed black sun burns overhead. Painted by Daniel Soltero in acrylic on stretched canvas and dated 2025.
Soltero, Harvard-trained in architecture and urban design, works as a self-described "citizen of the world," drawing on the indigenous cultures, legends, and folklore he has encountered across North America, Central America, Europe, and the Middle East. The Koshare — trickster-clowns who invert order and sanctify play within Pueblo tradition — are a fitting subject for that global-folkloric lens, staged here against the cosmic drama of an eclipse. The painting is signed lower right and again on the verso, where it carries the full title, dimensions, medium, date, and the artist's location of Las Cruces, New Mexico. The hand-painted image extends around the edges of the canvas, finishing the work for frameless display.
History
The Koshare (also Koyemshi or "mudhead" clowns in related Pueblo traditions) hold a formal ceremonial role among the Rio Grande Pueblos: painted in horizontal black-and-white stripes, they perform between sacred dances as ritual clowns whose satire, gluttony, and reversal of social norms carry spiritual weight. Soltero pairs this regional iconography — grounded in the Pueblo world familiar to his Doña Ana County home — with an eclipse motif, staging the clowns' irreverent dance against a moment of celestial disorder.
CONDITION
Excellent. No remarkable damage. The painted image wraps and extends beyond the canvas edges; gallery-wrapped and ready to hang without a frame.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Overall: 48" H × 36" W × 1.5" D
- Medium: Acrylic on stretched canvas
- Artist: Daniel (Dan) Soltero
- Title: Koshare Eclipse
- Year: 2025
- Origin: Las Cruces, New Mexico
- Signed lower right and verso
