January 14 - March 1 2019. I am showing portraits I have been drawing lately of so many special members of the Basque diaspora of the American West. The exhibition is at Reno City Hall's Metro Gallery, open week days from 9am to 5pm.

I will organise a reception on Thursday January 31st, from 5 to 7pm. Looking forward to seeing old and new friends!

About the exhibit 'Nevadan Basques':
My work involves exploring how we represent identity. When it comes to a Basque person, the traditional way of portraying him or her has tended to focus on stereotypical physiological features – or on ‘typically Basque’ cultural practices such as wearing a beret, playing pelota, dancing, chopping wood or singing. While many of the persons I portray do engage in these activities, the focus of my paintings is not on these externally visible markers of identity. Instead, my paintings explore how each of my models chooses in her or his own and unique way to be Basque, American, and many more things. 
We all have multiple ways by which we construct, live, love and ache identity, and it is these processes which interest me. My portraits feature various generations, life styles, and identifications. I paint individuals born in the Basque Country of France or Spain or whose parents or grandparents emigrated in the early 20thcentury, as well as some who came more recently to the US.

The portraiture project is ongoing and will culminate in the Fall of 2019 with a show at the Basque Museum in Bayonne, in the French, Northern part of the Basque Country. It will then tour parts of the country – including places from which some of the people portrayed originated.


About me:
I emigrated to Nevada in 2011, in the footsteps of my great grandfather. While he came from the French Basque village of Gamarte to work as a sheepherder, I came to take on the position of professor in anthropology and art at UNR’s Center for Basque Studies. Settled in my new home of Reno, I began to paint the portraits of members of the local Basque American diaspora. From 2015 to 2018, I was a Research Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I am now back in Reno, where I continue to work as an artist.
My interest in portraiture lies in the possibilities of pushing the boundaries of naturalist-realist painting by combining it with ethnographic inquiry. I have over fifteen years of practice as a portrait painter. I trained in Florence, Italy, where I also taught in two of the most important naturalist-realist painting schools. I have exhibited and sold paintings across Europe and the USA, including at UNR’s Sheppard Gallery, the American Natural History Museum in New York City, the Chicago Arts Incubator and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas.