On paper and on Google Maps, the Indah Gallery is part of the Roblar Winery complex just outside Santa Ynez. But in fact, a pathway to the gallery takes us through the vines and in a comfortably removed corner of the property, in a neatly retooled barn-like structure far from the complex where eating, drinking, and leisurely lounging take place. The art lives here in its own space, literally and atmospherically.
Gallerist and founder Max Gleason is himself an artist, whose studio is in the back space of a structure once housing farm equipment, but now beautifully reborn as an art gallery. The latest artist on view is, fittingly for Chumash country, Mitchell Robles, whose Native American heritage leads him to interpret ancient cultural signifiers and imagery with a contemporary art sensibility.
In Robles’s exhibition Many Roads, the centerpiece is the large, vibrantly colored triptych “Thunder Mountain,” lined with icons, symbols, and animal imagery capturing his research into pictographs and rock art — such as might be found in the local “painted cave.” The sum effect is engaging, a sensory wash of visual energy, with indigenous cultural subcurrents.
