Jared Weiss’ compositions follow in the nonlinear tradition of dreams. The figures in his paintings appear to have materialized, unfazed, in technicolor desert landscapes that are both familiar and strange, a surreal backdrop for their enigmatic narratives to play out.  

Like dreams, Weiss’ work has a collaged aesthetic, bringing people, places and experiences that never existed together in reality into the shared space of the canvas. This is a reflection of Weiss’ process, which entails painting close friends, colleagues, students (Weiss teaches painting and drawing at Santa Fe Community College) and the people in his daily life, and combining their likenesses with references to art history and contemporary events.

The Future Just Ain’t What It Used to Be, 2025, oil on canvas, 46 x 60 in.

“One of my good friends pointed out that the space is the constant element in my work and it was as if the people have been meandering through the space at different times, and I’ve just sort of captured and compressed that timeline into one frame,” Weiss explains.

During Covid, Weiss started integrating blurred imagery—the multiple images mirroring the echo chamber many of us felt trapped inside during that time of isolation—and adding other elements that amplify the disconnect between the characters and their surroundings. “For some reason, over the past five or so years, they’ve never been grounded,” he says. “You never see their feet, like they’re in front of a screen, filmed, projected, compiled together…but never literally in the desert space.

Probably Not, 2024, oil on canvas, 24 x 24 in. 

“….You can also think of this doubling as self-replication into virtual spaces, implied movement, etc,” he continues. In works like Probably Not, the second self-portrait is rendered in the same palette and contours as the landscape. “With this I am also hoping to show a resonance with the open, vast spaces of the Southwest. For me, isolation in this environment is both an escape and a celebration.” 

Weiss paints intuitively, allowing his subconscious to take the lead. It can take a long time to “unpack” and decipher the messages in his own compositions and, even then, some questions linger unanswered. 

Years into working on the oil Well, That Does Sound Pretty Serious,it hit Weiss that the painting addressed his loss of a very dear friend to suicide. 

Well, That Does Sound Pretty Serious, 2025, oil on canvas, 63 x 43 in. 

In it, three expressive, almost gravity-less figures occupy a corner of the canvas, their bodies overlapping but each in their own worlds, seemingly unaware of one another. Again, there is the sense of travelers passing through a space born out of the inexplicable crossing of timelines.

Their attention is turned to a space beyond the borders of the frame. “Everyone is gesturing to something outside the rectangle,” says Weiss. “It occurred to me that that is where my friend is…in a place that I can’t know. It took me two years to understand what those gestures mean.”

In The Future Just Ain’t What it Used to Be,three entranced figures pose mid-waltz in the middle of a desert highway, their arms raised in…what? Are they in the midst of a ritualistic dance? Were they just dropped off by aliens in this strange and beautiful place? 

It Makes a Difference, 2025, oil on canvas, 20 x 30 in.

“Painters throughout history have reflected the time and culture that they lived in,” says Weiss, by way of attempting to explain his latest body of work. “We are constantly filtering information through our experience, psychological disposition, and emotional temperament from day to day. With this, artists are always projecting unconscious associations and memories onto the work that they create—whether conscious of it or not. I often say to my students, ‘you can’t get outside of yourself, so you might as well embrace your way of processing the world.’” 

Consisting of 13 new large-format works, We Don’t Know That We Know Where We Are We Don’t Know That We Know Where Were Going opens at Ellsworth Gallery in Santa Fe with a reception on April 17 from 5 to 7 p.m. and hangs through May 29. —

Ellsworth Gallery 215 E. Palace Avenue • Santa Fe, NM 87501 • (505) 989-7900 • www.ellsworthgallery.com 

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