Sally Chandler / Bibliography:  click here to return to articles

Ebie, William D. publication, cat. Invitational Exhibition:
Roswell Museum and Art Center. Roswell N.M., Nov. 1993

Santa Fe painter Sally Chandler is a student of Kandinsky’s spiritual thesis on art, as well as various theosophic and religious doctrines. On this foundation, Chandler has established a belief in the Gaia theory, which hypothesizes the Earth as a living organism — an acknowledged affinity with traditional Native American belief systems. Believing that our survival is dependent on coming to terms with nature, Chandler sees her ecological paintings as a crusade, bringing us awareness of our symbiotic relationship with nature, and alerting us to the correlation between “the dysfunction that exists in society and the abuse we inflict on the environment.”

Chandler paints gardens and ponds as metaphors for the different elements in our environment. Her paintings demonstrate a lush beauty that is, on closer examination, tainted much like our own environment. “If we were really moved by the beauty of the world,” Chandler says, “we would honor the Earth in a profound way. Resurrecting the Earth requires awakening the human psyche and connecting it to the life forces in nature.”