Local artist Lara Branca is getting back to the basics in her upcoming Mancos show.
“People are used to seeing this very energetic abstraction,” she said. “These pieces are quieter. Just me being more introspective, they have a dreamy quality to them. It’s something I’ve been looking at for a couple of years.”
Her “Nomadic Soul” show will be featured at the Olio restaurant and art gallery through early June. Branca sees it as a way to re-examine the fundamentals of light and form, to reconsider what she finds beautiful – but also as an homage to travel, as she has found herself growing increasingly strong ties to this corner of the world.
“Which is beautiful to feel grounded and rooted in a place, but at the same time, my heart misses traveling,” she said. “So I let my mind wander different places in this show.”
Born in Denver, Branca has since lived in various locales, from Seattle to Portland. She came to Southwest Colorado to attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, graduating in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in painting.
She stuck around, living in Mancos for a time. And now she’s been in Dolores for almost 12 years, longer than she’s lived anywhere. She’s turned a shed into an art studio, especially useful for the large-scale “plein air” – outdoors-based painting – artwork she enjoys.
Branca has dabbled in other art forms too, especially dance, which perhaps helps add a multisensory dimension to her work, a three-dimensional, spacial element to a two-dimensional canvas.
Her recent artwork has focused largely on equine forms and figures, using the rescue horses she keeps out by Lewis as subjects.
The horses make their way into the upcoming “Nomadic Soul” show, as do her travels near and far.
“I, like a lot of people in the area, spend a lot of time driving around,” she said. “Because there’s all such great distances between everything out here. I observe my horses and the land, I observe Montezuma County through the seasons, and that’s kind of what this show is looking at.”
On a larger scale, the show is also a way to transport her out of the county. Since moving to Dolores, she hasn’t been able to travel as much, she said, and her paintings serve as a way to do so.
“Each piece is somewhere else,” Branca said. “It’s kind of like a visual travel journal in a way.”
Her exhibit will open on Saturday, kicking off with a reception from 4-6 p.m. at Olio, 114 W. Grand Ave. The show will run through June 8.
ealvero@the-journal.com