This series of paintings are inspired by Dinétah (Navajo Land) of northern Arizona. I grew up in this area and spent many days wandering and exploring the vast canyons and desert areas. Some forms represent mountains and canyons, or large boulders, textural expressions of something from memory where the painting and the exposed process become the partial subject of the work. The idea of earth’s natural processes also informs the painting through layers of translucent and opaque colors, intersecting forms, and the dynamic composition of movement in a static state. 

Just as there are layers of geologic history beneath our feet, so are the many layers of personal and cultural histories embedded into the landforms of my life.  I’m ultimately searching for the same otherness, or enigmatic quality ‘painting’ can have, similar to a feeling one might experience while standing in the middle of a deep canyon shaped by the shifting earth, moving water, and millions of years.

Steven J. Yazzie