Jane Seavers
STATEMENT
Before becoming a full-time painter, I spent decades as a nurse-midwife and nurse practitioner, accompanying people through birth, illness, healing, and loss. Those years taught me that careful attention is one of the deepest forms of care. They also taught me to remain present in moments of uncertainty, distress, and transformation.
Although art was a lifelong dream, I did not begin studying painting seriously until 2002. Through college coursework, workshops, and the guidance of generous mentors, I developed a painting practice that balances direct observation with abstraction, using color, composition, and atmosphere to convey both the physical landscape and its emotional resonance. Painting has become another way of bearing witness—and another way of caring.
Whether painting migration along the U.S.–Mexico border or the fire-shaped landscapes of my home in southwestern New Mexico, I am drawn to places and people living with vulnerability. Through these subjects, I explore themes of uncertainty, endurance, and the evolving relationship between humanity and the natural world.
Visions of a World on Fire grew from living through repeated wildfire evacuations of my home and witnessing a landscape I love transformed by smoke and flame. Yet the work is ultimately about more than wildfire. It asks how we respond when the places we love are threatened, honors those who protect them, and recognizes the resilience of both people and the land itself.
I hope my paintings invite viewers into difficult conversations we might otherwise avoid and encourage them to encounter lives, landscapes, and experiences beyond their own. I use beauty not to soften difficult realities, but to invite viewers to remain with them long enough to appreciate their complexity and the human stories they contain.
Working in oil, I move between realism and abstraction as recognizable landscapes dissolve into color, smoke, and light. Whether I paint landscapes marked by smoke and fire or those filled with light and quiet beauty, I hope my work reflects both the fragility and the enduring wonder of the world we share. If these paintings invite viewers to reflect on our responsibility for one another and for the landscapes we call home, then they have fulfilled their purpose. Jane Seavers
BIO
Jane Seavers is a New Mexico oil painter whose work explores the intersection of landscape, human experience, and environmental change. Before becoming a full-time artist, she spent decades as a nurse-midwife and nurse practitioner, caring for families in New Mexico and working in Indigenous communities in Alaska, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, as well as with migrant workers in California. Those experiences continue to shape her artistic practice, which is grounded in careful observation, compassion, and bearing witness.
Although art was a lifelong dream, Seavers began studying painting seriously in 2002 through college coursework, workshops, and mentorship. Working in a style that balances realism and abstraction, she creates paintings that invite viewers to engage with both the beauty and vulnerability of the landscapes and communities she portrays.
Seavers lives and paints in Silver City, New Mexico. Visions of a World on Fire is her second solo exhibition at Ceres Gallery, following
Refuge and Peril in the Borderlands in 2023.
Solo Exhibits
| 2026 | Visions of a World on Fire, Ceres Gallery, New York City |
| 2023 | Refuge and Peril in the Borderlands, Ceres Gallery, New York City |
| 2019 | Perils of Our Southwestern Borders, Bear Creek Art Studio and Gallery, Pinos Altos, NM |
| 2014 | The Season of Winter, Copper Quail Gallery, Silver City, NM |
| 2012 | Landscapes of the Southwest, Silver City Library, Silver City, NM |
| 2010 | SW New Mexico: Land of Enchantment, Main Street Atelier, Pinos Altos, NM |
Group Shows
| 2022 | Ceres Gallery, Women’s Voices: A New Day, New York City |
| 2021 | Fall Show, Art at the Center, Nederland, CO |
| 2019 | Friend’s Show, Ceres Gallery, New York, NY |
| 2017 | Juried Purchase Prize Show, Grant County Art Guild, Pinos Altos, NM |
| 2016 | The Landscapes of Home, Vicky’s Restaurant, Silver City, NM |
| 2014 | 6X6 Show, Bear Creek Art Studio and Gallery, Pinos Altos, NM |
| 2013 | Teachers Who Paint and Students Who Teach, JW Art Gallery, NM |
Awards
| New Mexico State-Wide Juried Show,Grant County Art Guild | |||
| 2017 | Monsoon Over LS Mesa, Second Place (Oil Painting Division) Judge: Krystyna Robbins, El Paso, TX | ||
| 2016 | Alone, Third Place (Oil Painting Division) Judge: Carole Andreen-Harris, Tucson, AZ | ||
| 2014 | Snowy Path on the Loop, People’s Choice plus Award of Excellence (Oil Painting Division) Judge: Millard Davidson, Tucson, AZ | ||
| 2013 | City Of Rocks, Best of Show and First Place (Oil Painting Division) Judge: Donna Levine from Scottsdale, AZ | ||
| 2010 | Sandy Road at the Box and LS Mesa, Second Place and Honorable Mention (Oil Painting Division) Judge: Ken Hosmer, North Platte, NE | ||
| 2009 | Last Light on the Mesa, Honorable Mention (Oil Painting Division) Judge: David Schwindt, Tucson, AZ |