James Lavadour

Like Rain

On each of the nine panels that compose Like Rain, Walla Walla (Walawalałáma) painter James Lavadour applied vibrant hues of crimson, orange, yellow, blue, and green. He then scraped and wiped away some of the layers, only to subsequently reapply a thin muted wash of paint on top.
This symbolizes how the act of painting mimics the geological processes of the land—in this case, dynamic scenes of rocky cliffs engulfed by fire and smoke in eastern Oregon, where the artist grew up on the Umatilla Reservation. Lavadour ultimately performs his own erosion process across these canvases, exemplifying his belief that a landscape painting should demonstrate the movement, energy, and geology of a place, rather than offer a static view of the site.