Tavlos paints in the present tense. The past and the future are intensely present in each electrifying image. His work always has mirrored each decade in which he has been present and painting. Consider the 1970's. Santa Fe was a quaint, sleepy village known chiefly for Indian goods, so Tavlos lined up some pueblo pottery and gave it a sharp focus to match the deep silence and crystalline air of northern New Mexico. The 1980's heated up a bit. Tavlos and his work caught on. Others caught up.
Tavlos moved on.
He bonded with the howling coyote, which until then had existed only as a folk artform and not as a symbol of the southwest. He gave the coyote a simple silhouette and a complex presence. He made it an icon. Yikes! Suddenly it was everywhere, as ubiquitous as a smiley face. It was copied in every conceivable medium from Arizona to Texas.
Tavlos skedaddled.
He went to dog shows. He went to the rodeo. He went to Italy and brought back a taste for opera and a flock of cherubini. His sweet, impudent little putti didn't start the angel fad of the early 1990s, though. That was just a coincidence...probably. As the twentieth century drew to a close he looked at the big world from the wild west of his own neighborhood to the glitzy blitzy media culture that was overtaking us all.
Then September 11, 2001 arrived. The world would be changed forever. People were afraid to travel, tourism in Santa Fe and all over the world suffered. With the exception of three large murals completed in private homes in Santa Fe, Tavlos saw most of his paintings and prints ship to clients outside of Santa Fe. He needed something to tweak the locals with. So by the end of 2001 he introduced a totally new line of work. A line of screen doors. The result was clearly Tavlos' but the painting was totally new. He calls it "Tavlos in Distress". He uses the same vivid colors, distresses them and then antiques them. After painting twenty-five doors, Tav started painting what he refers to as his Screen Door Art.
On 911 everything changed and so, it seems, has Tavlos.
Welcome to Tavlos in Distress.
He's right here. His art is life and laughter and freedom. In fact, the surest cure for the computer fatigue that hounds us all is to look away from the rows of black and white numbers and letters and re-focus our gaze onto the wall where hangs an impossibly bright, implausibly gleeful Tavlos image.
There. Thats better.
Suzanne Deats
museum of new mexico, santa fe, new me
xico
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS (Selected)
El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas
Amarillo Art Center, Amarillo, Texas
University of Texas, Austin, Texas
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
Albuquerque National Bank, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Fannin National Bank, Houston, Texas
Southwest Federal Savings & Loan Assoc., Wichita, Kansas
American Security and Trust, El Paso, Texas
Texas International Airlines, Houston, Texas
Coble Building, Amarillo, Texas
Aetna Insurance Company, Champaign, Illinois
Interspace Corporation, Wichita, Kansas
Tejas, Minneapolis, Minnesota
CNN Corporate Headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia
Cafe Terra Cotta, Tucson, Arizona
Cactus Jacks, Carmel, California
xx
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Trail of the Painted Ponies, COVER, 2001, Zon International Publishing Company
New Mexico Magazine, The Call of the Coyote, April, 2000, Emily Drabanksi
The Artists, Their Art and Their Environments, 1992, Roberta Kimmel, Random House
Focus-Santa Fe, He's Back, August/September 1991, Suzanne Deats
Focus-Santa Fe, Tavlos is Loose, August/September 1989, Suzanne Deats
Art Talk, The Look of Santa Fe, August/September 1989, Suzanne Deats
The Santa Fean, The Ubiquitous Coyote, April 1989, Daniel Gibson
Albuquerque Journal North, Tavlos, June 14, 1988, Anne Hillerman
The Santa Fean, Tavlos, September 1987, Anna Katherine
House Beautiful, The New Art, April 1987, Carol Garey
Print Text-Friendly copy of Tavlos' biography