Pale Rider Painting

Cavazos--Pale Rider.jpg

Dublin Core

Title

Description

Photograph of an unidentified painting, probably by Juan Cavazos. A self-taught painter, Cavazos traveled from Mexico for employment as a migrant farmworker in Western New York. With support from the Geneseo Migrant Center and the MollyOlga Art Center of Buffalo, Cavazos began showing his art in several shows beginning in the late 1980s.

The painting here apparently shows a dairy farm, with a farmworker at lower right feeding cattle. Its appearance however is very surreal, even apocalyptic. Darkness frames the scene, including a defoliated tree at left and shadows at top, A blonde woman sits side-saddle upon a white horse, paralleling another that runs through the grazing cattle. Likewise, a wooden fence corralling the cattle is echoed by a wooden beams enclosing the farmworker. One of the most unsettling features is a composition that initially seems to have us looking up at a patch of blue sky, but probably is looking down upon a pond surrounded by mud and cattails.

Creator

Cavazos, Juan

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Type

Still Image Item Type Metadata

Original Format

Photograph of an acrylic (?) painting

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