Featured Artist Alex Chavez

Artist Alex Chavez celebrates culture, beauty and personal history in his astonishing collection of figurative paintings. View more of his portfolio on his website.

 

 

I live and work in Taos New Mexico. My connection to Taos is personal in a way that goes beyond just living here. My mother was born here, and when I moved to Taos in 1997 it felt like I was returning to something, not just arriving somewhere new.

 

 

That sense of homecoming changed everything about how I work. The landscapes and culture here became a constant source of inspiration. They give my work that sense of place and belonging that I think you can feel in the paintings. I’m not just painting in Taos—I’m painting from Taos, from its history, its light, its people.

 

 

There’s a direct line between where I come from and what I make, and I think about that a lot. The paintings are in some way a love letter to this place and to the family roots that brought me here.

 

 

Every painting I make is an invitation to reflect on what it means to be alive. I keep coming back to the preciousness of life, to our ephemeral existence, to the deep connections we share with each other across culture, time, and geography.

 

 

Those aren’t just things I say. They’re things I try to make you feel when you stand in front of my work. A figure with a flower and suddenly you’re thinking about beauty and impermanence. A face with a particular expression and suddenly you’re thinking about everyone you’ve ever loved.

 

 

That’s not an accident. That’s an artist doing exactly what they set out to do. I’ve been quietly building this body of work from a studio in Taos, New Mexico, for decades now. If even one of these paintings stops you in your tracks and makes the world feel a little more meaningful, then I’ve done what I came here to do.

 

 

My muse is beauty, and I find it in the human spirit. Not a specific type of person, not a specific look—the human spirit itself. I work from photo references that I manipulate, building a hint of narrative using a minimal number of elements—mainly through makeup, costumes, and objects like flowers, birds, or insects, much like a still life or a photographer’s composition.

 

 

But capturing the essence of a person is always the primary goal of my figurative work. I study the great masters of portraiture in books, in museums, and yes, online. I’m always trying to understand how they achieved that sense of presence. I want every face I paint to feel like there’s a whole world inside it, because there is.

 

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