Ed Samuels at Chumani Gallery

Artist Statement

I don’t think I can remember a time in my life that I wasn’t sculpting, drawing, or painting. The first time I saw a Renoir nude, I was shaken by the thought that this man not only made beautiful paintings, but was respected and actually lived by his artwork. I must have been twelve or thirteen at the time.

I was very fortunate to be accepted by two excellent painters when I was still in my teens, IIya Bolotowsky and Ben Johnson. Both of these artists took me under their care and let me visit their studios at will. I decided to follow fine arts as a career.

Going to art school was the awakening of a dream for me. When I left New York City and the art world there in 1981, I knew in my heart that I would start all over out here in New Mexico.

I first stayed at Luis Jiminez’s studio for nearly a year producing local site landscapes. I would get up at 6 a.m. and paint until late afternoon. Then I would take long walks and melt into the countryside, looking at everything- my eyes and mind soaking it in like a sponge.

I moved to Santa Fe but longed for the country again. On a painting trip in 1982, I found Jemez Springs. That same day I got a house on three acres and moved in.

Here’s where my work relaxed and broke out of a more representational mode and into what I consider to be something much more personal, and much more me. The last two Van Gogh shows at the Met taught me about color, form, and to see anew again. The older I get the more I seem to see and learn.

In this valley of thousands of years of culture, I have been captured; and I find myself the happiest of prisoners.