Chethlahe Original Painting titled “Spirit World Figures” [SOLD]

Spirit World Figures is an original painting by David Chethlahe Paladin, a Diné artist who is known to have explored a variety of styles and subjects during his career. With this piece, he offered a depiction of four figures over a textured teal background. The myths and legends of his youth inspire the subject matter of his paintings. On the Navajo Nation, spirit beings inhabit the hills, valleys, and mountain peaks. This painting is Paladin's visual interpretation of the spirits that roamed the landscape of his childhood.

Paladin's figures are abstract, which is certainly fitting for spiritual beings. A thick application of a silver paint, perhaps thickened with some kind of additional material, forms each figure. They rise just slightly off the background, giving the image an additional level of depth. The limited color palette works beautifully, allowing the image to maintain an appropriately mysterious feel.

The painting is signed Chethlahe and dated 76 in lower left. It is framed in an elaborately carved wood frame.

David Chethlahe Paladin (1926-1984) was born on the Navajo Reservation in 1926 at Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. He served in the U. S. Army during WWII and was a prisoner of war for 2-½ years. He studied art at the Santa Fe Indian School and then at the California School of Fine Arts, where he studied under Marc Chagall and Mark Tobey. Paladin explored many styles and drew from a wide variety of influences during his productive career. He began with traditional imagery before expanding into more abstract territory. He also explored a wide variety of media. Paladin's images are often rooted in spiritual themes, incorporating traditional Native symbology with unique, personal, abstract imagery.

Condition: excellent condition

Provenance: this Chethlahe Original Painting titled "Spirit World Figures" is from an Albuquerque collection, sold through Adobe Gallery in 2015 and recently returned to be placed back on the market

Recommended Reading: Painting the Dream: The Visionary Art of Navajo Painter David Chethlahe Paladin by David Chethlahe Paladin

TAGS:  Dorothy Dunn, Navajo Reservation, Native American Painting