Tony Abeyta keeps a frantic pace.
“I’m just a different kind of animal. My life is built around travel and waking up in different cities. I’ll do an art fair in Miami, Phoenix for the Heard Museum, Burning Man, New York for the Armory Show, I’ll go to Europe for Milan or Spain to see my kids,” he says. “That’s the pace of my life. I was very engaged with the external parts of the world.”
Bluebird Valley, oil on canvas, 40 x 60"
And then, with the snap of the fingers, the world stopped as the pandemic shuttered travel, closed borders and sent billions indoors in self-imposed isolation. For Abeyta, having it all grind to a halt like that, it really started to make him think about his life, his work and the concept of home.
“I’ve been focused on ‘sanctuary’ during these times of pandemic. Isolation, in theory, is a good thing. Sometimes just being alone with the time to reflect on how one has been living their life and what direction we will choose on a new path ahead. It would take the coronavirus to stop my frenetic trajectory,” he says from his studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “I was moving way too fast and traveling like a madman, searching out new stimulus and experiences, becoming too familiar with airport terminals, Ubers, window seats and expanding my social circle way beyond the capacity to spend quality time with.”
Crow Canyon, oil on canvas, 36 x 54"
As the pandemic made us all hunker down where we were, Abeyta started nesting: he moved his studio into the living room, pulled out old records he’d been wanting to listen to, he started cooking more and he took up fishing again after a long time away from it. “I have a sanctuary, and it feels good,” he adds.
This period of intense creation, and existential pondering, will be on view in Abeyta’s newest show, opening August 13 at Owings Gallery in Santa Fe. The show will feature new landscapes and some other surprises from the famous modernist whose works are widely collected within Native American art circles and outside of them as well. Works include Bluebird Valley and Crow Canyon, both of which show the chaos and beauty of the weather and light in the Southwest.
Amber Buttes, oil on canvas, 40 x 50"
Fishing plays a large role with this new batch of work. “I started going fishing to get outside and breathe the fresh springtime air and the trails along the river were sparse with people, so it felt safe to be back outside and unknowingly rekindling creative inspirations,” he says. “Each trail and fishing pool and rock to perch upon, gave me a new vantage point to reconnect with nature and, most of all, New Mexico. I had forgotten about those airports and express lanes and Uber drivers and the familiar smell of hotel sheets. Here I was back to where it all began—everything I had been painting for the past several years was all around me. I was back, amidst my other ‘sanctuary.’ The skies were bigger than I had remembered, studded with buoyant clouds and the mountain villages of northern New Mexico held stories and memories of times in my youth where I drove every day to find new adventures and swim in pools and bake on rocks in the sun. Here was a newfound solitude and it felt good to have a farmers tan back on my arms and smell those fish on my hands and look up at the clouds moving across the sky. Because here…I have all the time in the world and so, I began to paint it.”
Owings Gallery
August 13-September 15, 2020
120 E. Marcy Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 982-6244, www.owingsgallery.com
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