OPENING: Tommy Bruce • New Fauna
Sat, May 22
|Santa Fe
If you dress up like a deer and go into the woods, what are you? A deer, a human, or something else? In New Fauna, artist Tommy Bruce makes opaque the clear demarcations of human/non-human, real/virtual, and animate/inanimate through his playful yet carefully composed photographs.


Time & Location
May 22, 2021, 5:00 PM – Jul 04, 2021, 5:00 PM
Santa Fe, 215 E Palace Ave, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
About the Event
OPENING RECEPTION: MAY 22, 2021, 5-7 PM (The exhibition will run through July 4, 2021.)
Join Ellsworth Gallery, 215 E Palace, Santa Fe, NM 87501, for the opening of New Fauna, a new exhibition by artist Tommy Bruce.
If you dress up like a deer and go into the woods, what are you? A deer, a human, or something else? In New Fauna, artist Tommy Bruce makes opaque the clear demarcations of human/non-human, real/virtual, and animate/inanimate through his playful yet carefully composed photographs of the Furry community. Bruce's own fursona, Atmus—a white-tailed deer—serves as a stand-in and muse to the exhibition amongst a collection of figures in landscapes both digital and natural. Costumes and bodies dissolve into one, acrylic fur becomes flesh, and avatars come alive. In observing their states of pleasure and peril, one is left wondering whether this world is an enchanted utopic fantasy or the dystopian reality of our near future.
"New Fauna collects work from a decade spent immersed in Furry culture. Somewhere between drag, cosplay, and self-identification, the Furry community represents a new phenomenon made possible by our deepening connections to virtual space and media fantasy. Desire—for reintegration into the “natural world,” or simply for an escape from the reality which we must inhabit—sits at the heart of each of these images." -Tommy Bruce
Tommy Bruce is an artist residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work centers on an exploration of identity in contemporary culture through work with the Furry community. He was born in State College, Pennsylvania. He received an MFA in Studio Art from the University of New Mexico in 2020 and a BFA in Photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014.