Original CJ Wells Oil Painting, “Crow Warrior”

CJ Wells is a Santa Fe artist and poet of Native Amer­i­can and His­panic Amer­i­can descent. Her paint­ings often reflect her Span­ish and Amer­i­can Indian her­itage. Her por­traits of Amer­i­can Indian war­riors and children often depict her sub­jects with glow­ing “yel­low eyes” sig­ni­fy­ing tra­di­tional respect for the “holi­ness of the Earth and animals.’”

As TAOS Mag­a­zine states, “Well’s paint­ings present a fas­ci­nat­ing con­trast between the solemn faces of her sub­jects and the lush color and detail that sur­round them. Her images have an abstract, time­less qual­ity. The war­riors are set against dark back­grounds or cloudy skies, and their yel­low eyes seem to gaze out beyond the viewer. They appear to be lis­ten­ing to an inner voice or con­tem­plat­ing the past. Each one is an ele­gant, aris­to­cratic pres­ence sur­rounded by mys­tery and drama.”

CJ also cre­ates poetry that relates to her works and is inspired by them. “The poems come from deep within me,” she says. “They give voice to the pen­sive fig­ures of the paint­ings in haunt­ing, oth­er­wordly verse.”

Her stu­dio can be found these days in Santa Fe, but Wells spent four­teen years in Scotts­dale before return­ing to Santa Fe in 2001 at the time of her father’s death. She says she has come to stay. Cur­rently sin­gle, the mother of two grown chil­dren (a daugh­ter and a son) and with four grand­chil­dren, she finds her­self in a posi­tion to pur­sue her art with­out restriction.