YellowHairStudio

Landis Bahe – BiographyBorn into Navajo tradition at Tuba City, Arizona Landis entered this world on August 2, 1978. His mother is from Hard Rock near Pinon, Arizona and his father from Star Mountain near Teetso, Arizona. The middle child of three children Bahe was cradled in a world of weavers, silversmiths and painters. In infancy Bahe was teased by his grandfathers for his light skin and temporary jaundice condition, and was called Yellow Hair. Today he borrows that nick name for his company name Yellowhair Studio.While Bahe took two art classes at Sinagua High School in Flagstaff, Arizona, he admits to failing them. “I was hard headed and wanted to do only what I wanted to. For instance I liked art history and Greek and Roman art, and unless we were studying what I wanted to, I tuned out,” divulged Bahe. Admitting to being self taught as an artist, Bahe self studied Renaissance masters such as Leonardo DaVinci, and Michael Angelo. From the Dutch Golden Age Rembrandt was also a painter that Bahe found stimulating because of his handling of lights and darksBahe is married to Michelle and they are the proud parents of two girls and a boy. “Much of my drawing and painting serves as teaching tools for my children”, states Bahe. “It is often much easier explaining something to my children with a visual tool than with trying to explain verbally. Every painting has its own story, memories, feelings and thoughts, many based from my own childhood.” The Bahe family currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.While the arts are an integral part of Bahe’s life, making an adequate living in this modern time is critical. Bahe is a supervisor for an explosives company and was given the opportunity to learn the process by his step father who introduced him to that work environment. Working on such projects as the Hoover Dam by-pass, where rock and debris need to be cleared away for modern construction, has made Bahe knowledgeable in this special field. Explosive seminars have also been helpful in his education.A man of many interests and talents Bahe also plays the guitar and flute, does Jiu Jitsu, a Brazilian martial art and Judo, placing second recently in a Nevada state championship. Apprenticing recently as a tattoo artist, Bahe keeps seriously in tune with modern trends including this form of body art.About Bahe’s ArtworkCaptivated by the colors and realism used by Renaissance masters and living masters of today Landis Bahe has taken direction and inspiration from many including Bahe Whitethorne, Al Bahe, and Clifford Beck with a twist of Norman Rockwell nostalgia, Navajo style. Suffused with richness, hues run the gamut between intense lights and darks often playing against an unexpected sky. “I felt emotions looking at others’ work and saw the dedication these artists had to their work and decided to do my own art on a more serious level like they were”, states Bahe.Bahe uses two diverse media, that of acrylic paint and pen and ink tinted with fibercolors. Bahe’s acrylic paintings often use extreme perspective such as in “A Campfire’s View” or aerial elements as the turquoise floating in space of “Green Planet” and “Floating Embers” or the atmospheric sky in “A Winter’s Night”. His strong solid use of color and his well constructed composition create images that inspire and transcend native stereotypic art work. With an urban twist, no doubt stimulated by his work as an explosives worker, Bahe mixes tradition with that urban slant swinging one way, then the other, to create ethereal images that make the viewer linger just a little longer.Bahe’s pen and inks tend to be lighter images both in presentation and subject matter. “My pen and inks are almost graffiti like, they naturally come out,” states Bahe. A greater level of abstraction is present and his use of negative space is a strong compositional quality to each of the works. The design quality is playful and lyrical, however all renderings remain close to his heritage and in keeping with his willingness to share his culture.“I try to do the best I can do, learn and grow as I get older with images and subjects that are stories from my childhood”, quips Bahe. “I used to give my work away, and I realized I needed to value it more because I do have something to say about my world and place in it.”Hopeful projects for Bahe include the possibility one day of bringing monumental paintings in the form of murals to metropolitan cities. “I’d like to get the tribe more out there, to show urban people my Navajo culture” states Bahe, “and show folks without the knowledge of Navajo heritage what it means to me.”