Jivan Lee: Arboreal Digital Catalog

Jivan Lee Arboreal

Jivan Lee

June 14 - July 20 |

Arboreal began wholly unexpectedly during a workshop I was teaching one summer for the Harwood Museum at the D.H. Lawrence Ranch north of Taos. The workshop was based on Georgia O’Keeffe’s famous The Lawrence Tree painting, which she made at the ranch in 1929. At the start of the day, I assured the attendees that we’d only be inspired by her approach to the subject, and that I wouldn’t paint a tree for the demo. And then, as often happens on-location, the place and weather adjusted my plans for me, and wouldn’t you know it, an hour later there I was painting a ponderosa. The piece – Trunk #1 (Thank you) – became the inspiration for this show.

If you’re unfamiliar with O’Keefe’s piece, it is memorably composed. Between us and the starry night is the tree’s big, tall, burnt sienna and red trunk, and then its branches, unfurling outward, holding up the tree’s dark canopy. And finally, beyond that, the composition stretches into the vastness of space and time. It’s a wonderful painting that leaves a mystical imprint. There is a palpable curiosity and sense of awe in the work; of beholding scale and an intimacy with wonder. It’s much like the feeling of lying under a big tree and contemplating life.

Paintings are powerful. They communicate to our bodies and minds; they can transcend time, culture, socio-economics, and language. One visit to the MoMA to see Van Gogh’s Starry Night changed my life. People are often spontaneously moved to tears

- John Constable

by paintings. Good paintings reach some part of us in a manner that is almost magical, serving as thresholds between what we know already and what we didn’t yet realize about our world: as invitations to look more deeply into the realm of possibility and feel the awe of discovery.

A show such as Arboreal, then, is an endeavor of multiple natures. On one hand, it is clearly inspired by trees and about trees. And in this I’ve taken a literal approach to depicting them – at least when viewed at some distance. Every painting features a recognizable tree, or trees; the show is something of a survey, an effort to follow their diversity through our region. There are singular trunks as in Tree in the Trail, Standing still (Ghost Limbs), or Trunk #1 (Thank you). And there are undulating tapestries and flows of trees through the landscape in Fall Flows and Happy Little Trees #1 and #2. There’s seasonal foliage in In the Stand, and, shaded shelter under outstretched branches in Budding out by the river.

On the other hand, there are no literal trees in Arboreal. It is a show of paintings, not trees. Paintings are about paint’s special capacity to contain every intimation of the correspondence with a subject. And how that special capacity can affect us deeply and open doors to seeing the subject, and ourselves, differently. Arboreal’s paintings contain images of actual places and trees, but the images are built out of felt senses that arose in the body while being with trees. Tree in the Trail, for example, isn’t just a tree in a forest; it’s

the result of discovering bursts of electric green exuberance in the canopy, forceful trajectories of trunks and branches jutting upward and outward, and stark contrasts of dark and light colliding on bark. And Fresh Light (Thank you Daniel) isn’t only junipers and piñons at sundown. It’s what standing in the community of trees at sunset felt like: an almost nonsensical experience of being hit in the eyes with technicolor sunset light while apparition-like tree silhouettes bobbed in and out of view – big, bold, nearly unresolvable, cacophonous, and still, deeply harmonious.

Each piece was made of these perceptual fluxes, by a ferrying between the inner world of felt sense and the outer world of specific phenomena and place. And these sensational experiences are in turn captured in the material of paint, directly and immediately amidst creative correspondence with the subject. Painting trees changed me; somehow, they gifted more affinity for immediacy, more appreciation for the here-now-gone-tomorrow of things, and more respect for the value of unexpected marks and colors.

And so as much as Arboreal is a show about the trees of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and vast valleys below, it also is a chronicle of what resulted from a creative act dedicated to the trees. It is a celebration of correspondence between human and tree, artist and landscape, and of the powerful changes that painting amidst trees brought.

My approach to painting is animated by a few beliefs: One is that by painting outdoors, amidst the landscapes I know – the places I live, the trees I see, the trails I walk – I will find something of the universal and be able to share it in the form of finished work. The belief is not that I will necessarily understand it (or even know

that I’ve found it); only that the act of looking closely – deeply – at the landscape is powerful and opens up new perceptual possibility. Another belief is that painting is capable of transmitting profound sentiment. And a third is that innate to the creative act is a mystery: we can communicate things greater than our comprehension, and this is a potent part of powerful paintings.

Painting requires loosening one’s habitual hold on preconception, certainty, predictability, and isolation. It is a relational act with –if truly alive and courting the moment freshly – an unknowable outcome. A painting does not improve with ideas of what is “mine,” or how important “I” am, or by who’s measure. It improves with the quality of attention one brings; with the depth of curiosity and commitment; and with, as 19th Century English landscape painter John Constable counsels, as little ‘arrogance’ as possible. Nature is correspondence, communication, and ecologies of connection: “We,” more than “I.” It does not do to unjustly claim as one’s own genius that which is so deeply animated by all things.

And so it does not do, either, to isolate the creative process from its inspiration; painting within the landscape becomes a necessity. In my practice, painting in nature first developed by seeming chance, and then later became the intentional center point. How better to “walk…with [Constable’s] humble mind” than to correspond with the landscape, and especially trees, by meeting them where they are? Outside, in weather and light and time. By the river. In the high alpine forests. It’s rarely comfortable, but it can be ecstatic. And it always requires meeting nature on its terms: working with realities of each day is a balanced surrender, of sorts, to one’s part in the greater play.

Fresh Light (Thank you Daniel, diptych), 2024, Oil on panel, 48 x 120 in.

Making Tree in the Trail serves as a good window into the process and the challenges that can arise...

The piece prominently features the trunk of an alpine conifer I had walked by for ten years without noticing, and then last fall saw for what felt like the first time. Its bark is gnarled with deep, dark crevices that stretch upward. In the morning, cool canyon shadows frame the tree’s base, which is set alight in the blaring sun. Dark/ Light; chiaroscuro on a Taos trail.

But nothing about this painting comes easily. It requires hauling 60 pounds of gear to the edge of the wilderness in an old trekking pack, big panel in hand, umbrella and easel jutting out high above my head. And on first try, it’s clearly the wrong time of day. So then everything has to go back down the trail. After the frustration, I realize with relief just how difficult painting and carrying a huge wet panel would have been in the wind and tell myself not to do that. The next day it’s all the same again. Driving back, and hiking, and hauling. But lo, I’m painting in the wind. The 60” x 48” wood panel is bungee-corded to a tree and jostling the whole time. My umbrella is blowing over. My paint mixing table is blowing over. I’m underprepared. The sun keeps moving. The shade keeps leaving. I can’t see well; I’m tired and hot and altogether despondent, but holding onto the faith that something in the essential wisdom of the process will answer the call.

At its best, this type of discomfort during the process compels adaptation, inviting a flow state and a relinquishment of egotism –a healthy humbling. Every day – even at the same location – brings

an entirely new topography of color, light, weather, and time, and importantly, a completely different inner landscape. And therefore, presents fresh possibilities to set aside preconception and see better, feel more. If the act of painting is attuned to the landscape, even two identically situated and composed pieces must end up entirely new no matter how similar conditions superficially appear. What a lesson, a window, to the infinite diversity of our world. It echoes Constable’s observation that “the world is wide, no two days are alike,” and the Scottish writer and poet Nan Shepherd’s, “To know fully even one field or land is a lifetime’s experience.”

The resulting paintings are shaped by nature and hopefully carry forth some of the mysteries of a given place on a given day. The work in Arboreal was made with the trees and was shaped by the places and elements that they, too, were shaped by: sun, rain, heat, cold, wind, snow; topography, time. The creative act then can be a collaborative effort even as my body is the one applying the paint. The body is the vessel of feeling; skill with the medium is the facilitator; and, nature is the director. And together, work arises of that unique moment.

No two leaves on a tree have ever been the same; no work is ever more or less than the moment, the content and correspondence, that shapes it.

- Jivan Lee /Taos, New Mexico / May 2024

To know fully one field or one land is a lifetime's experience.

- Nan Shephard, 'The Living Mountain'

Taos Ski Valley Aspens (Happy Little Trees #1), 2023 Oil on panel

40 x 30 in.

Fresh Light (Thank you Daniel, diptych), 2024 Oil on panel

48 x 120 in.

Young Ponderosa Beneath the Vastness of Blanca Peak (diptych), 2024 Oil on panel 108 x 48 in.

Standing Still (Ghost limbs), 2024 Oil on panel 84 x 48 in.

Fall Flows, 2023

Oil on panel

36 x 72 in.

In the Stand (Community), 2023

Oil on panel

60 x 48 in.

The Welcome Tree (Time), 2024 Oil on panel 60 x 48 in.

Trunk #1 (Thank You), 2023

Oil on panel

60 x 40 in.

Winter Sundown (Hondo Canyon), 2024 Oil on panel

60 x 48 in.

Fall Canopy (Gold vein), 2023 Oil on linen 22 x 72 in.

Storybook Sunrise, 2024 Oil on panel

48 x 48 in.

Budding Out By The River, 2024 Oil on panel

48 x 36 in.

Storms Down, 2024

Oil on panel

60 x 40 in.

Together In A Field, 2024 Oil on panel 36 x 36 in.

Stay Put and Grow (Spring in Seco), 2024 Oil on panel 48 x 48 in.

Along the Rio Hondo, 2022 Oil on panel 72 x 48 in.

Aspens in Taos Ski Valley #2 (Happy Little Trees #2), 2023

Oil on panel

48 x 90 in.

The Old Apple Tree, 2017

Oil on linen

48 x 72 in.

Tree in the Trail, 2024 Oil on panel

60 x 48 in.

The Magic Grove (Stay Humble), 2024 Oil on panel 36 x 36 in.

Exhalation (Up in Smoke), 2024 Oil on panel

48 x 48 in.

Storybook Pastoral (Thank you Constable), 2024 Oil on panel

48 x 60 in.

Snowy Tree, 2024

Oil on panel

40 x 30 in.

High Up In The Backcountry, 2022 Oil on panel 36 x 30 in.

Solitary Midnight (Shadow Work), 2019 Oil on panel

40 x 30 in.

Snarl #1, 2023 Oil on panel

12 x 12 in.

Sunset Trunks - East, 2023

Oil on panel

12 x 12 in.

Sunset Trunks - West, 2023 Oil on panel

12 x 12 in.

Six Moments Along A Treeline, 2018 Oil on panel

6 x 40 in.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2023 Seasonality, Altamira Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

Hondo, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Superbloom, Altamira Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2022 The Infinite Landscape, The Lunder Research Center at the Couse-Sharp Historic Site, Taos, NM About Time, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

2021 Watershed, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

2020 Dynamics of Change, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Weathervane, Altamira Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2019 Monument, William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

Constant / Change, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Icons of the American West, Altamira Fine Art, Jackson, WY

2018 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

By the Wayside, Altamira Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2017 A River Runs Through, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Our Land, Altamira Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2016 LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM

Atmosphere, Altamira Fine Art, Jackson, WY

For the Wild, Heinley Fine Arts, Taos, NM

2015 Hallowed Ground, Harwood Art Center, Albuquerque, NM

2014 Sky Above | Earth Below, Heinley Fine Arts, Taos, NM

2013 Paint This Land, Heinley Fine Arts, Taos, NM

Introducing Jivan Lee, William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

2011 Milagro Gallery, Taos, NM

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022 Watercycle, William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

Taos Abstract Artists Collective, Taos, NM

Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale, Denver, CO

2018 New Regionalisms: Contemporary Art in the Western States, McNichols Building, Denver, CO

Coors Art Exhibit, Denver, CO

2017 Coors Art Exhibit, Denver, CO

Lynn Boggess, Lui Ferreyra, and Jivan Lee, William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

2016 Out West Art Show, Great Falls, MT

Coors Art Exhibit, Denver, CO

2015 Deep Forest / High Desert, Heinley Fine Arts, Taos, NM

Great American Landscapes, Flinn Gallery, Greenwich, CT

Wandering the West, Altamira Fine Art, Jackson, WY

Earth, Water, and Sky, William Havu Gallery, Denver, CO

Desert Mythos, Altamira Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ

2014 Holiday Lookbook, Altamira Fine Art, Jackson, WY

Summer Gala Exhibition, Taos Art Museum, Taos, NM

Jivan Lee and Peter Campell, Meyer East Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

MasterWorks of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Art Auction 2014 Invitational, Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, AL

Heinley Fine Arts, Taos, NM

2013 Under the Hill, E.L. Blumenschein Museum, Taos, NM

Masterworks of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

PAPNM Members Exhibition, Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM

17th Annual National Juried Exhibition, Abend Gallery & Plein Air Artists of Colorado, Denver, CO

Plein Air Santa Fe, Gary Kim Fine Art & Plein Air Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM

¡Encantada! 2013, Albuquerque, NM

Common Ground 2013, City of Santa Fe Arts Commission Community Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2012 Taos Contemporary, Center for Visual Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver, Denver, CO

16th National Juried Exhibition, Wilder Nightingale Fine Art & Plein Air Artists of Colorado, Taos, NM

Art Auction 2012 Invitational, Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, AL

Common Ground 2012, City of Santa Fe Arts Commission Community Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

A Russian Night in Taos, Taos Art Museum and Fechin House, Taos, NM

Annual Members Exhibition, Plein Air Painters of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM

Taos Select, Taos Fall Arts Festival, Taos, NM

10th Annual Miniatures Exhibition, Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM

¡Encantada! 2012, Albuquerque, NM

Young Artists of Taos, Taos Center for the Arts, Taos, NM

2011 3rd Annual Taos Self Portraits, Taos Center for the Arts, Taos, NM

Land and Light, Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM

Taos Select, Taos Fall Arts Festival, Taos, NM

A Russian Night in Taos, Taos Art Museum and Fechin House, Taos, NM

The NOW WOW Project, Hudson Gallery, Sylvania, OH

2010 Portraits of the Sacred, Stables Gallery, Taos, NM Solutions, Trillion Space, Albuquerque, NM

The Arts UpStairs Gallery, Phoenicia, NY

Selected Bibliography

“Museum Preview: Pieced Together.” Western Art Collector. December 2022. 108 - 111.

“Jivan Lee’s Long-Form Painting Meditation.” Southwest Contemporary. Ashley M. Biggers. May 23, 2022.

“Seasons of the Day.” Santa Fe New Mexican / Pasatiempo. Michael Abatemarco. August 6, 2021. 24 - 26 & cover.

“I’m Feeling it in the Cells of my Body.” Albuquerque Journal. Kathaleen Roberts. 8/30/2020. A&E pg. 7, 8.

“Exploring Large-scale Paintings: An Interview with Artist, Jivan Lee.” Savvy Painter Podcast. Antrese Wood. 7/31/20.

“An Art Fair Where You Can Buy a Steer and a Painting in the Same Venue.” Hyperallergic. Kealey Boyd. 1/23/2020.

“Monumental.” American Art Collector. John O’Hern. December 2019. 64 - 69.

“Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale: a million-dollar, career-making event.” Denver Post. John Wenzel. 1/19/2019.

“Plein Air Painting Today.” Vasari 21 (online). Ann Landi. 10/21/2018.

“No Doors.” Western Art & Architecture. Gussie Fauntleroy. June/July 2018. 136 - 141.

“Santa Fe: A visit to the Railyard Arts District.” Two Coats of Paint. 6/22/2018.

“A Home that Embraces the Grey.” Colorado Homes and Lifestyles Magazine. April 2018. 89.

“Review: Enjoy the Scenery at William Havu's ‘Survey’.” Westword. Michael Paglia. October 25, 2017.

“State of the Art Market.” Southwest Art. October 2017. 74-79.

“Jivan Lee: Our Land.” Western Art Collector. February 2017. 80 - 81.

"A respect for the land." Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine. December 2016. Pgs. 114 - 119.

"Artist making their mark: Jivan Lee." Fine Art Connoisseur. January/February 2016. Pg 47.

"Rhythms in Nature." American Art Collector. December 2015. Pgs. 128-129.

"Serenading the land." Southwest Art (cover artwork). February 2015. Pgs. 72 - 75 & Cover.

"Exhibition: Jivan Lee at Heinley Fine Arts." Plein Air Magazine's Plein Air Collector. Fall 2014.

“Five-foot paintings of thunderstorms, done with a spatula.” Plein Air Magazine’s Plein Air Today. July 30, 2014.

"Three Taos artists under 35." Taos News/2014 Gallery Guide. 2014. Pgs. 64 - 67.

"Paint this Land - an exhibit by Jivan Lee." Taos News. November 7, 2013. Pg A10.

"Show preview: Taos, NM – Jivan Lee." Southwest Art. October 2013. Pg 62.

"Off the walls: Taos, New Mexico." Fine Art Connoisseur. September/October 2013. Pg. 108.

"Painting a 10-foot-wide triptych on location." Plein Air Magazine’s Plein Air Today. March 27, 2013.

"Commission This! The delicate dance of painting for hire." Art Business News. Winter 2012. Pgs. 34 - 37.

"Work of the week: Bella Lucia by Jivan Lee." Art Business News. May 25, 2012.

"Through a Native lens.” Tempo Magazine/Taos News. May 3-9, 2012. Pg. 4.

"Extreme painting - painting on the edge." Plein Air Magazine. Winter 2011. Pg. 83.

"Artist profile: Jivan Lee." Plein Air Magazine (digital version). June 22, 2011.

Selected Awards

2020 Finalist, Acclaimed Artist Series, New Mexico Art in Public Places Program

2018 Fine Art Connoisseur Award, Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale

2017 Fine Art Connoisseur Award, Coors Western Art Exhibit

2016 "Three to Watch" artist, Fine Art Connoisseur

Finalist, NM Art in Public Places Large-scale Purchase Initiative

2015 Cover Artwork - February 2015, landscape issue, Southwest Art magazine

2014 Solo exhibition award, 2015 Solo series, Harwood Art Center Winner, 3rd, 4th, & 5th 2014 Showcases, ArtSlant

2013 Best of Show, 15th Annual Masterworks of New Mexico Exhibition, Albuquerque, NM

2012 Award of Excellence, ¡Encantada! 2012 exhibition, Albuquerque, NM

2011 Plein Air Salon national semi-finalist

Armadillo Santa Fe award, “Land and Light,” Millicent Rogers Museum