For more than 18 months, the goal was 6 feet apart. Sometimes it was just easier to stay home to avoid people and potential illness. “One and a half years had a big impact on our culture and on human existence,” painter Tony Abeyta says of the pandemic. “We all tried to make lemonade with the lemons. Some focused on their spirituality. Some bonded with their kids, some watched a lot of TV—which is OK, I watched some TV—but what I really focused on was getting in touch with nature. And that’s what I did.”
A Prickly Partner from Afar, oil on canvas, 30 x 36"
Abeyta, the famous modernist painter from Santa Fe, New Mexico, hit the trails in Northern New Mexico. He frequently brought a fishing pole with him. With no shows to plan for, “deadlines were taken out of the equation,” he says. “It was just me and the landscape and the animals. The birds, horses, antelope and deer.” He made regular visits up near Chimayo, to the small town of Cundiyo, population 72. It was in this serene landscape that he started to hone in on how the environment is changing.
“It was little things, the things you might not notice if you work in an office every day. It was just subtle differences that you tend to forget about after you see them,” Abeyta says. “The reservoirs were a little more depleted, the temperatures were rising, the land was changing. I suddenly realized I wanted to have a conversation about these changes in my paintings.”
Flowers for Tomorrow, oil on linen, 24 x 20"
His new show, which opens August 19 at the Owings Gallery in Santa Fe, will show the land, but also its volatility, from torrential afternoon thunderstorms to swirling clouds over rolling hills. In several works, animals will make appearances, which will be direct references to his time outdoors over the last year. In all of the pieces there are abstracted qualities in the paint and compositions. Abeyta fragments his paintings into tumultuous layers of color and form that speak to the controlled mayhem of his light and line in the Southwest. Lately he’s been drawn to an artist who worked in a similar style a century ago—New York painter Charles E. Burchfield.
Rhythms from Darkness, charcoal, wash and ink on paper on canvas, 39 x 58¾"
“He’s one of my favorite painters lately. The way he created a realm that was very much human emotion. It made me think, how can I create my own emotion within the paintings,” Abeyta says. “Burchfield’s work feels eternal and yet very familiar. He paints a unique vernacular. He paints his own story of his own home town, of his own canyons and plains and mountains. They are authentic and real, and those are the qualities I’m searching for in my own work.”
The new show will feature as many as 24 pieces, including several massive paintings. One piece is 6 by 10 feet—it’s so big that he’s still not sure how to get it out of his studio. “We stretched it on to the stretchers in the studio, so we’ll see how it gets out,” he adds.
Abeyta hopes the new works make viewers question the permanence of the land around them. But he also hopes they just notice the land by witnessing its beauty. “I didn’t catch many fish when I was out,” he says, “but I came out appreciating how sacred the earth is.”
The Owings Gallery
August 19-September 24, 2021
100 E. Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 982-6244, www.owingsgallery.com
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