back at the viewer. There is a softness to
their expression, enhanced by the deli-cate,
layered application of color.
DeChesere adds painstaking detail
to the portraits, rendering the wrinkles
in the pair’s skin, the whiskers at the
base of their long tusks, and the tex-tural
distinctions between softer ears,
thicker, sun-exposed skin, and hard,
ivory tusks. Subtle changes in hue give
the image a sense of being bathed
in a soft, natural light and the overall
composition has a meditative and con-templative
quality.
These works and others like them
emerge from what DeChesere calls his
“giant inventory of experiences.” The
artist has traveled extensively over
the last several years, and much of his
work is about revisiting, representing,
and then sharing the diversity of those
experiences. This is clearly a labor of
love, as DeChesere imbues this visual
travel log with an emotional care that
renders images from Thailand, Kenya,
Guatemala and the wilderness of the
Appalachian Trail accessible, even to
viewers who have not experienced such
places themselves.
Though DeChesere has only been
focusing on art for a few years, an even-tual
career in visual art was fated.
“I guess it all started back in high
school when we took a vocational test,
meant to tell you what you’re supposed
to be,” he says. “For me, the test said
‘artist.’ My dad’s response was: ‘No. The
second choice is architect; you should
be an architect, because artists don’t
make any money.’
“So,” he adds with a laugh, “I immedi-ately
enrolled in architecture school at
the University of Kentucky.”
DeChesere earned his degree and
entered the job market during the
1960s, before electronic computing and
modeling was the standard. His course-work
included a handful of classes in
drawing and design. An inherent gift for
drawing, likely cultivated in these stud-ies,
is clear in his simpler sketches, like
the portrait of a musician quickly com-posed
at a Georgia bluegrass festival,
as well as in more complex watercolor
compositions like “At Rest at Wanchese”
and “Long Tail Fleet.”
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