Newsletter Archive – Chris Morel
Chris Morel: Plein Air and the High Desert
Chris Morel is a Taos-based landscape painter known for his luminous oil paintings of northern New Mexico. Born in rural Maryland, he studied art at Towson University and later worked as an illustrator, including a stint with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. In 1994 he moved to Taos, drawn by the dramatic scale, intense light, and atmospheric qualities of the high desert. He has lived and worked in the region ever since, painting from a studio in Vadito amid the Sangre de Cristo mountains.
Morel is a dedicated plein-air painter who works quickly and decisively outdoors, often completing smaller studies in a single session before developing larger studio pieces. His subjects range from sweeping views of the Rio Grande Gorge and Taos Pueblo pastures to intimate adobe structures, autumn aspens, and quiet backroad scenes. Signature memberships in Plein Air Painters of America, Oil Painters of America, and New Mexico Plein Air Painters reflect his standing in the field. His work has appeared on the cover of Plein Air Magazine and is held in private collections across the United States and abroad.
What distinguishes Morel’s paintings is their sense of immediacy and honesty. He distills complex scenes into clear shapes, strong color relationships, and the specific feeling of a moment—late-afternoon light on adobe, storm clouds breaking, or footprints in snow. Viewers often sense both the beauty and the lived reality of the landscape. In addition to painting, Morel is an accomplished guitarist and singer-songwriter whose music shares the same reflective, grounded quality as his visual work. Together, the two practices reinforce his deep connection to the land and community of Taos.
Chris Morel Newsletters
The Complementary Life of Taos Painter & Musician Chris Morel
The Complementary Life of Taos Painter & Musician Chris Morel
In the high desert foothills just off the High Road to Taos, Chris Morel has spent more than three decades translating the vast, ever-shifting landscapes of northern New Mexico into oil and watercolor. From his studio in Vadito, tucked among the Sangre de Cristo mountains at around 8,000 feet, Morel paints en plein air with a reverence for the region’s dramatic light, ancient adobe structures, rolling pastures, and rugged cliffs. His works capture not just the scenery, but its quiet power and sense of place: golden aspens in autumn, storm light breaking over the Rio Grande gorge, or the intimate scale of a backroad bend that feels both familiar and eternal.
Landscapes by Chris Morel
Landscapes by
Chris Morel
Chris Morel in the Press
J. Chris Morel at Chimayo Trading – Originally published in the Taos News, Metro Section
Originally published in Taos News, Metro Section >>
J. Chris Morel at Chimayo Trading
by Tamra Testerman | June 6, 2022
When the violet-red fire clouds of the Calf Canyon–Hermits Peak blaze were perilously close to Sipapu, the air thick with ashy smoke, Taos painter and musician J. Chris Morel prepared to evacuate — grabbing photographs of his three children, guitars and canvases of unfinished work, frames and a favorite easel.