Esteban Cabeza de Baca makes plein-air paintings and observational paintings of his dreams. Sleep coupled with reality, produces beautiful yet irrational imagery. Growing up Mexican and Native American, Esteban had to invent new forms out of a loss of personal pre-Columbian memory. He retrieves this memory through conscious and unconscious methods. Painting outdoors helps him scout the American landscape for scenes to cast in his narratives.  What is learned painting outside in nature on 1 x 1 foot surfaces is brought inside exploring dreams, and often transformed into 6 x 6 foot works. The irrational, mythological and everyday emerge from dreams onto the canvas like a landscape.

 

Esteban Cabeza de Baca was born in 1985 in the border town of San Ysidro, CA. In 2014, Esteban was honored with the Sharpe-Walentas Residency. He is the recipient of the Gamblin painting grant and the Stern fellowship. He has exhibited at the Fisher Landau Center for Art, The Wallach Art Gallery, The Leroy Neiman Gallery, and Tompkins Projects in New York and the Museum of Outdoor Arts in Colorado. Esteban holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA from Columbia University.

 

www.estebancabezadebaca.com