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Reno, NV.  The Nevada Museum of Art will exhibit a sample of Carmelo Ortiz de Elgea’s work from this Saturday to January 5.  The artist, from Alaba, is one of the best-known living Basque painters and was the founder of Orain, a group that “gathers artists from Alaba committed to experimentation as a tool for change,” according to the museum’s website. 

The exhibit is the first show by Ortiz de Elgea in the US, and will include a series of paintings inspired by the North American landscapes.  In 2001, the artist toured Northern Nevada and California; invited by Anthropologist William Douglass, founder of the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.  He visited places like Lake Tahoe, Mount Rose, Virginia City, Smoke Creek and areas in California, Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico and Utah.

“I couldn't imagine the impression such a big open space and the expanse of landscapes of virgin nature would have on me,” Ortiz de Elgea said of his travels on the museum’s website. “I immersed myself into the magnificent landscape, revisiting it with my canvas and colors, and painting it without a moment of rest. I would have loved to live there and never leave the immense land where eyes get to see all the way to the horizon without interruption.”

More information on the museum’s website.