September 30 – November 13, 2022

Dolores Chiappone is an American painter who has thrived in her own dream world for nearly a century. Her paintings fuse plant, human, and animal figures into fractal fantasias. Beauty and mystery resound in her union of opposites, wherein earth and cosmos are joined to a pacific center, or what Dolores calls the “sky within.” While the imagery in her paintings is derived from dreams, memories of past lives, magical intentionality, and the “music of the spheres.” Dolores also notably participated in the pioneering LSD therapy of psychiatrist Dr. Oscar Janiger in the 1950s. This experience helped her work through trauma from paternal and spousal abuse and radically redirected her artistic path. Now in her 90s, her work is presented in a one person show at the Tubac Art Center in Arizona. Visit her website to learn more about Dolores.

Dolores Chiappone

Dolores Chiappone has revisited consistent themes throughout her work. Her direction was established in 1959 in her late 20’s with Untitled, a painting she considers the foundation of her mature style. It is a portrait of a woman transforming into a filigree of patterns, spirits, and phantoms. The composition is a vision of a world in motion, breaking apart and recombining in unexpected ways. Chiappone arrived at this approach not through formal training but as a consequence of psychological trauma and the profound effects of experimental medical treatments with LSD.

Untitled, 1959, oil on canvas, 40 x 30”