Bio

CJ Wells is a Santa Fe artist and poet of Native Amer­i­can and His­panic Amer­i­can descent. Her paint­ings often reflect her Span­ish and Amer­i­can Indian her­itage. Her por­traits of Amer­i­can Indian war­riors and childern often depict her sub­jects with glow­ing “yel­low eyes” sig­ni­fy­ing tra­di­tional respect for the “holi­ness of the Earth and animals.”

As TAOS Mag­a­zine states, “Well’s paint­ings present a fas­ci­nat­ing con­trast between the solemn faces of her sub­jects and the lush color and detail that sur­round them. Her images have an abstract, time­less qual­ity. The war­riors are set against dark back­grounds or cloudy skies, and their yel­low eyes seem to gaze out beyond the viewer. They appear to be lis­ten­ing to an inner voice or con­tem­plat­ing the past. Each one is an ele­gant, aris­to­cratic pres­ence sur­rounded by mys­tery and drama.”

CJ also cre­ates poetry that relates to her works and is inspired by them. “The poems come from deep within me,” she says. “They give voice to the pen­sive fig­ures of the paint­ings in haunt­ing, oth­er­wordly verse.”

Her stu­dio can be found these days in Santa Fe, but Wells spent four­teen years in Scotts­dale before return­ing to Santa Fe in 2001 at the time of her father’s death. She says she has come to stay. Cur­rently sin­gle, the mother of two grown chil­dren (a daugh­ter and a son) and with four grand­chil­dren, she finds her­self in a posi­tion to pur­sue her art with­out restriction.

Clients

War­ren Benedick, New York
Alexan­der Wind­sor Betts, New Mex­ico
Tully & Jackie Cur­rie, Texas
For­mer Gov­er­nor Deuk­ma­jian & First Lady Cal­i­for­nia
John Down­ing, Ari­zona
Mr. & Mrs. Leo Epstein Cal­i­for­nia
Dr. Richard Fisher, Ari­zona
Mr. & Mrs. E. Gruss, New York
Linda Lavin, Cal­i­for­nia
Mar­vin Led­er­man, Col­orado
Betty & Leo Melamed, Illi­nois
Dr. Peter Migel, New Jer­sey
Mr. & Mrs. Scott O’Connor, Ari­zona
Ann Puch­ner, Cal­i­for­nia
Robert Red­ford, Cal­i­for­nia
Mr. & Mrs. Peter Richards, Mass­a­chu­setts
Rob­bie Robert­son, Cal­i­for­nia
Bill & Joan Sawyer, Cal­i­for­nia
Dwight Yokum, Cal­i­for­nia
Stephen Hopf &Geral­dine Godin, Ger­many
Dr. & Mrs. Ira Spec­tor, New York