Untitled

Chavez was a young artist from Denver, Colorado when he was invited to be an Artist in Residence at Casa Zapata in 1979. By that year, Casa Zapata had made a practice of inviting artists to create work through engagement with residents in the dorm. Then in his twenties, he went on to get his BFA at UC Berkeley in 1982 and an MFA from Yale in 1985. He has been living and working in New York since 1985.

Noted for his series of portraits, Chavez describes his work as realist, contemporary, and social political commentary. In addition to original oil work Esteban Chavez is an accomplished sculptor, architectural photo lithographer and lithographer.

He describes his art as a contradiction of forms. Of his educational trajectory, Chavez states, “I went to a lecture at UC Berkeley given by Clement Greenberg, Mr. authority on ab ex (abstract expressionism), plus I was an artist in residence at Stanford and learned about the bay area figurative. I certainly have a full range of ideas about North American painting, European painting really is the foundation of my work; and being a mestizo is another great contradiction.” Chavez continues to showcase his work internationally, which previous exhibitions in Oksana, Japan, Museo del Barrio in NYC, Taipei, Taiwan, China to name a few. His work is also included in Bond Fine Art, a sales and philanthropic art exchange for collectors, artists and nonprofits.

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