2024.04 LOS ANGELES ART ASSOCIATION

TITLE: SPIRIT RACER 

THEME & EXHIBITION LOCATION:

#1 OPEN/SHANGHAI/CHINA

#2 READY GO/LOS ANGELES ART ASSOCIATION/CALIFORNIA/USA

#3 PORTRAITS/VANCOUVER/BC/CANADA

#4 FACE-TO-FACE/BOSTON/MASS/USA

THE BACK STORY

I began painting this painting from a photo Harvy Lawrence asked me to paint.  I painted his family a photo realistic “study” size 11”x 14”.  He gave me permission to use the image as I wished.  

Like most kids there, riding their horses across the planes was and is part of who they are and who their ancestors were.  Lawrence Harvey, the young man who inspired this painting was a champion “Indian Relay Rider”.   “The Indian Relay is a fast-paced, bare-back horse race where teams complete three consecutive laps around a standard horse track.   Between each lap, the rider switches to a new, fresh horse with the help of a skilled team.  He is the only constant throughout the race. ‘The roots of modern Indian Relay are in the horse stealing raids that tribes once staged against other tribes and white settlers.’   When it was [the] middle of the night, they would come and take the prize horse and high-tail it back to their home” territory.”

Shortly after becoming a champion relay ride Lawrence died of self-inflicted means. Many young indigenous people living on a reservation die by their own hands.  My painting of Lawrence Harvy is my honoring the good person he was and his family and friends he left behind. 

This painting was not invited into the READY GO exhibition.

LAWRENCE HARVY - RIP

MEDIUM: ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

SIZE: 30” x 40” -  76.2cm x 101.6cm   YEAR: 2020