Born and raised in Jackson, Wyoming, Connor Liljestrom has had a first-hand view of how the reality of the West and the myth of the West collide. “There’s a discrepancy between what people think a cowboy is and what a cowboy actually is,” he explains. “There’s a long tradition of commodifying these Western spaces. Ranches turning into dude ranches, or buses of tourists visiting Pueblos in the Southwest.”
5 Cent Photos With a Sunflower Warrior, oil on linen, 105 x 84"
Liljestrom’s paintings aim to explore the place where the authentic experience and the pop-cultural understanding of the American West meet. Coyote, Coyote is a large-scale piece he conceived after spending a month and a half in the Mexican desert. It depicts a bust of a coyote in black and white, surrounded by a prickly pear cactus and a bright sun. “Living off the grid for that long, your body gets in tune with its natural circadian rhythms, waking up when it’s light and going to sleep when it’s dark,” he says. “This was the first piece that came out of me after the trip. You see the colors and the experience and the feeling of being in a space like that.”
The Early Show, oil and oil pastel on linen, 60 x 72"
Thousand Studies 1, oil and oil pastel on oil paper, 30 x 22½"
In 5 Cent Photos with the Sunflower Warrior, a Native American man stands in traditional garb, holding sunflowers. For this painting, Liljestrom says he thought about tourists visiting the Southwest at the turn of the 20th century, taking photos with Native Americans as a souvenir. He says, “I wanted the figure to look and feel very posed. Dignified, but a bit uncomfortable.”
Thousand Studies 3, oil and oil pastel on oil paper, 30 x 22½"
Coyote, Coyote, oil and acrylic polymer on linen, 84 x 70"
Even though he sometimes has a narrative in mind for individual works, Liljestrom says it’s important that how viewers understand his paintings doesn’t hinge on an artist’s statement. “I want to reciprocate viewers for their time, so that they get something upon the initial glance, but five or 15 minutes into it, they are getting more from it,” he says.
Upcoming Show
Up to 12 works
Now open
New West Fine Art
98 Center Street, Unit C
Jackson, WY 83001
(307) 201-5029
www.newwestfineart.com
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