AMERICAN DREAM / SUEÑO AMERICANO

AMERICAN DREAM / SUEÑO AMERICANO
BY GRETA WALLER
Inspired by the people and the incredible light of the rural Mexican landscape, these works tell the story of Greta Waller’s extended family in Zacatecas.
Tayloe Piggott Gallery is pleased to present American Dream / Sueño Americano, a solo exhibition of paintings by artist Greta Waller, on view September 30th through October 30th, 2022. Inspired by the people and the incredible light of the rural Mexican landscape, these works tell the story of Greta Waller’s extended family in Zacatecas.
- Greta Waller, El Rancho (The Ranch), 2022
Greta Waller is driven by her passion for exploring and understanding the nature of light and color. From her eye-bending oils of ice blocks and still life studies to avalanche paintings created following a life-changing trip to Antarctica, Waller employs her subject matter to serve as vehicles through which she studies light’s fleeting and variable properties. The Mexican desert proves fruitful ground. “I’m not romanticizing it at all; this is truly a painter’s dream, this part of Mexico,” she says. “This landscape is unbelievable. There are so many different catalysts for light…” Nopales cacti, clothes drying on the line, a simple residence lit as though from within—a lyrical narrative unfolds in oil paint.
But mainly, she says, it is the people who bring the landscape alive for her. Waller was born in Indianapolis and her lifelong drive to paint landed her at Cooper Union (BFA) and UCLA (MFA). Along the way, she met, married and had three young boys with a Hispanic-American man originally from Zacatecas. They built a life together in Indianapolis, what Waller describes as “our version of the American dream.” Despite their eventual divorce and estrangement, she wanted her children to know their father’s family and understand their multicultural roots. The family and rural community opened their arms to her, a white woman from the American Midwest, and her boys, attempting to reframe their American Dream.
- Greta Waller, El Rodeo, 2003
That of an outsider looking in is a theme running through Waller’s paintings from early on in here career. Here, however, there is an intimate knowledge conveyed that speaks to family, of being one with a culture. “My love for this place and the love of these people is these paintings,” the artist says. “That openness I received from them allowed me to transport myself, and allowed me to sink in [to the landscape]… just to sit there in the desert and see.” This selection of paintings makes a profound statement about life and love across cultures, an American woman’s heartache and eventual healing found in the love of a community.
- La Casa (Home), 2022
  Oil on linen
  30 x 40 inches
Born in 1983 in Indianapolis, IN, Waller earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in 2006. She continued her studies at the University of Los Angeles, CA, and received her Master of Fine Arts in 2011. Waller has participated in several select summer and exchange programs, including the Chelsea College of Arts and Slade School of Fine Art in London, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and the New York Academy of Art in Manhattan. In 2017, Waller was invited to participate in the Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts at The American Academy of Arts and Letters, from which the Academy chose her as an Art Award winner.