Damian CHÁVEZ ✿

'Quanta pace trovi dentro

dentro questa lirica immensa...'

~ Catherine La Rose© ~

 'Me l'ascolto in petto
palpitante e silenziosa
nella meraviglia
quasi incredula
impossibile
di come il marmoreo tempo
riesce a scorrere vivo
nonostante
il tuo sorriso gaudio
sigilli di labbra l'istante...'

~ Catherine LA ROSE© ~

 Damian Chávez (b. 1976) is an emerging artist from Los Angeles.  Damian's work is mostly figurative and although he hesitates to explicitly label himself a "realist", he will not veer away from a symbolist allusion to the "classical" in his work.

   His parents, collector-enthusiasts of American and European “Art Deco”, exposed him to art and design from a very young age and influenced his decision to pursue art. Chavez graduated from high school at 16 and then studied life drawing for the following 8 years after which he followed his interests in history and art to study abroad in Florence, Prague, and Paris. He later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

   Influenced by the thought and art of antiquity, and artists such as Max Klinger, Gustav Klimt, and Patrick Nagel, Damian Chavez is primarily an artist who draws and whose main subject is the female body. His figures and portraits stand in as depictions of people but also as a psychological and allegorical device-“Using the feminine persona allows me a freedom not attainable by other means”.

   His intent is to emphasize relationships of idea and embodiment, figure and ground, curved and linear, hard and soft, the contrast of relief and flatness, and to allow his mark making and overall design to move the viewer’s eye through the art into a dialogue with aestheticism.

   His paintings are mostly oil on linen or panel and his signature work consists of nudes, portraits  and allegorical subjects with an increasing tendency for color, and the carefully designed picture plane incorporating a strong emphasis on geometric design.

'Quanta pace trovi dentro
dentro questa lirica immensa...'

~ Catherine La Rose© ~