Artist Bio

Joe Schafer is a mixed media artist, husband and father of two based in Durango, CO. After a successful career as a custom finish house painter, Joe discovered his latent talent for fine art painting through experimenting with various mediums and techniques to create unique faux finishes for high end homes and custom furniture. Following an instinct to explore his creative voice along with a loving nudge from his wife who is also an artist, Joe created his first landscape painting in 2018. Shortly after, Joe became a full time fine artist and now spends most of his days painting in his studio at the The ArtRoom Collective, a diverse, working studio gallery in downtown Durango.

As a self-taught artist, Joe flexes into the skills that he learned in the trades, often incorporating unconventional techniques and mediums like stains, dyes, and solvent-based paints. Inspired by the vastness and elegance of the wild landscapes in his own backyard of Southwest Colorado, Joe utilizes the elements to create the rich and unique textures that are signature to his paintings. Whether letting summer monsoon rain rust the metal he uses as canvas or freezing paints on a bitter winter morning, Joe pays

homage to the environments that inspire his works by ultimately using them as a medium.

Joe's works are not simply landscape paintings. Evoking feelings of awakening and exploration, his works serve as contemplative reflections. They capture the expansive quality of the landscapes he interacts with, ultimately inspiring a healing and meditative

experience just like nature itself.

Nature not only serves as an inspiration for the meaning of my works, but it also serves as a medium. Starting with sheet metal, which allows for a lot of experimentation, I use stains, dyes, and both water-based and solvent-based paints to build colors and textures. I then scrape away paint, sand down the composition, and/or leave works to freeze or rust in the weather. Painting outside in the elements provides my pieces with unique and organic qualities as the mixed mediums react to heat, cold, snow, and rain, building up various smooth or rough textures and providing a depth of color.