S.M. Chavez // @smchavezart
S.M. Chavez (Sean Michael Chavez – b. 1971) is a native of New Mexico and a graduate of the Southwest University of Visual Arts. Working in oil, he uses a sophisticated pallet of grays and mid-range value keys to express his own unique vision of the southwest. His work is a marriage of old and new that nods to the past as well as to the future of traditional western landscape painting. A soothing sense of color and exceptional design aesthetic place his work within the spectrum of the best the genre has to offer. Included within notable corporate and private collections, his next frontier will be within the collections of art museums. S.M. Chavez is currently represented by Santa Fe’s Acosta Strong Fine Art on Canyon Road. His first opening at the gallery in 2019, was completely sold out on its inaugural weekend.
Statement
“My paintings have sometimes been compared by others to the historical painters of the Southwest such as Maynard Dixon and The Taos Society of Artists. It is not intentional that I paint this way. It just happens to be where I live and how I see this place. So it is necessary that I always look for something different in the landscape – something only I could have discovered. When I find that something, and use it in a painting, I’ve made something no one else could have.That is my voice, that my uniqueness and for me, that makes all the difference.” – S.M. Chavez
