CJ Wells

Research­ing her sub­ject mat­ter and mak­ing her own frames, CJ Wells cre­ates paint­ings of Native Amer­i­can war­riors. “They are a holy peo­ple,” says Wells. “They had vision, that is what I com­mu­ni­cate in the yel­low eyes. It sig­ni­fies how the peo­ple loved the earth. They have eyes, sim­i­lar to a wolf, that look at the earth with understanding.”

CJ paints in oils and has made lith­o­graphs, silkscreen prints and sculp­tures. She lay­ers her works with glazes and says she once used sev­en­teen col­ors on a horse’s eye to give it depth. “I paint for the brain,” she says. “Art is psy­cho­log­i­cal, but even for abstract work you need sym­me­try, har­mony and balance.”