Why paint? Why paint landscapes? Why paint this moment? Such metaphysical questions swirl around Jivan Lee as he paints en plein air around his home in Taos, New Mexico. Nature provides answers; nature as observed by Lee, by his brush, by his subjective gaze. He approaches the landscape as the vessel that bestows context on life—holding all aspects of existence, human and beyond, together as molecules hurtling through celestial space.
Last summer, a singular phenomena captured his attention: a super bloom, a rare seasonal occurrence that found the Taos plateau boisterously blanketed in yellow cow daisies and sunflowers. “Super blooms level us. They captivate our attention,” Lee says. “The super bloom required me to adapt to this unique thing happening only here, only now.”
Immersing himself in the blooms, Lee let his palette be defined by the hyperdrive hues he found in each location. Amid the canary cacophony, “all of the contextual colors were equally extreme.
