J. Chris Morel takes the beauty we thought we knew--Northern New Mexico mountainsides, an abandoned structure in a high alpine meadow, a street scene in historic Taos--and makes us see it in a new way, defining place and time with subtly dramatic light.

Morel works exclusively in oils, which he favors for their opacity and texture. He paints quickly, often beginning with a small study in oils done outdoors and later taking the idea to a larger canvas in the studio. His paintings are imbued with a looseness and a sense of immediacy that he feels would be lost if he labored over hyper-realistic details in the studio.