Press Release
A series of landscape paintings and pastel drawings by plein air artist Lorenzo Chavez will be exhibited at USU Eastern’s Gallery East from April 4 through April 22, 2022. The exhibit, entitled “Wandering the Colorado Plateau,” will feature many of his latest outdoor scenes of canyon country.
Chavez has been wandering the southwest for nearly all of his adult life. The seemingly endless vistas of bluffs, spires and canyons have provided ceaseless flow of imagery to paint and draw. “The landscapes of the area known as The Colorado Plateau have been a source of endless inspiration for creating and a spirit lifting and mind nourishing terrain,” he said.
“As a young painter searching for inspiring landscapes to sketch and experience, I began to explore this region and it never failed to provide more inspiration than many other areas,” said Chavez. It is little wonder that the shadows and lighted canyon walls and spires sparked a lifelong passion for painting the southwest. “I love the timeless feeling, the bare bones of the exposed good earth and the vast wide-open spaces, the endless sky and mysterious and compelling canyons and dry washes. When sketching, I immerse myself in beauty, I think creatively, and take a brief hiatus from the demands of everyday life. I am fully present in that place and that moment. I see, study and notice things that I perhaps did not notice before. Sketching raises my awareness; and it is pleasurable now because I have learned to enjoy the experience and the process of creating more than any preconceived outcome.”
This love of the Plateau and its canyons has been a motivating force. “I feel rejuvenated and at peace here in the Colorado Plateau region,” he observed. “I feel inspired to share my love of this place. Grand vistas and small dry washes, sagebrush and pine are all equally influences for creating. While painting the landscape from life, I began to remember that I am not separate from nature, that as a human, I belong not just to a human society, but equally to nature and of the more than human world. I do not just view natures power and beauty from the outside, I am one of it. It is here amongst nature and surrounded by this place of wonder that I am most conscience of being. And, it is here that I am uplifted and inspired to love and create.”
“The night sky and dawn and dusk leave me with a feeling of another dimension and a connectedness to timelessness and everlasting, and for that I am grateful to be alive to feel, create and love,” said Chavez.
Chavez now makes his home in Parker, Colorado and uses this location as a base to travel and paint the American West and Southwest. Using pastel and oil mediums, his hope is to carry on the art traditions of American painters, such as the Taos Society of Artists and the American Impressionists.
USU Eastern’s Gallery East is located in the Central Instruction Building and its exhibits are free and open to the public during the academic year from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed weekends and holidays. The gallery observes COVID-19 precautions, including face coverings and a limit of 10 people in the gallery at one time.
Lorenzo Chavez will be conducting a plein air workshop in the Price area on April 7 and 8. The reception for Chavez’s exhibit is April 8 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Contact Noel Carmack by phone at (435) 613-5241 or by email at noel.carmack@usu.edu for any questions about the exhibit or Chavez’s two-day workshop.
