“Ajax Axe’s new show at the Skye Gallery invites you to cast a spell, to perform a ritual, to spin a wheel of fortune, to step inside of a sculpture and peer out from it.
The interactive and playful 21-piece show uses fun and tongue-in-cheek magic as a sugar-coated hook while offering some fierce commentary on the stories we tell ourselves as individuals and as a society.
“I find most gallery shows dry and boring,” Axe said during a walk through her cabin studio on a remote patch of untamed land on the backside of Aspen Mountain. “They don’t think about the viewer at all. It’s like they don’t care. For me, the viewer is so important. I think about a concept and then I think about how I can make the viewer think. That’s why we’re doing so many interactive elements in the show.””