James Lavadour

Bright Spot

Walla Walla (or Walawalałáma) painter James Lavadour is inspired by the rocky landscapes and winding waterways of eastern Oregon—where he grew up on the Umatilla Reservation.1 He sees painting as similar to the geological processes found in nature, such as erosion. To create Bright Spot, Lavadour applied vibrant hues of crimson, orange, yellow, blue, and green to two canvases. He then scraped and wiped away those layers of paint, reapplying thin washes of color back on top. As a result, the rocky cliffs in Bright Spot appear as if they are engulfed by fire and smoke. Lavadour tried to mimic the process of erosion—the gradual decay of something—through this act of scraping and wiping paint away. Bright Spot also represents Lavadour’s larger belief that a landscape painting should capture the movement and energy of a place, rather than offer a static view of it.