Aaron Hazel | Fresh Visions

Aaron Hazel portrays the overlooked and underrepresented faces of the West

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

Aaron Hazel has many stories to tell. Some of them are about the early days of his art career, when he accepted a wide assortment of commissions, including portraits of people as well as dogs and cats. One client gave him a five-page narrative about what to include in the commissioned painting. Thankfully, Hazel says, he also had customers at the other end of the spectrum, such as the client who simply asked for the words “I Love Your Face” splashed across the canvas.

These days Hazel is still telling stories, but now they are the stories he chooses, stories that inspire him and feed his imagination. His mission today is to offer viewers a fresh vision of the West through his oil paintings. “I want to disturb the status quo of what is deemed western art, unearthing the stories of the overlooked and underrepresented—minorities and women of the old West and the current West,” says Hazel, who’s based in Idaho. “I want to find stories that educate me and others.”

Whether it’s a contemporary rodeo cowboy or a Native American from a bygone era, Hazel spends hours researching his subjects, poring over photo reference material and history books. “It is important to me, as a fellow minority, to help spread a story and humanize a people who were treated as anything but human,” he says.

Hazel refuses to paint a subject if he cannot find out certain significant details. When it comes to portraying Native Americans, he often consults with Crow painter Del Curfman to glean helpful background. “To me it seems respectful to at least have three items of information—name, date, and tribal affiliation,” he says. “I want the viewer to understand that I have done my due diligence with the subject and gleaned as much information as possible.”

Hazel describes himself as a realist, impressionist, cubist, and experimenter, and he is comfortable employing an eclectic mix of styles in his work. As an example, consider his painting LEGEND, which depicts Vincent Jacobs, a Hall of Fame rodeo star from Texas. Painterly, geometric shapes come together to portray the subject’s cowboy hat and his beard.

The artist set out to convey Jacobs’ tenacity and pride despite the racism and prejudice he endured as a Black rodeo competitor in the 1950s and ’60s. “I juxtaposed a tough, granite-like face with the playful flair of the shirt,” Hazel says. “To me the portrait represents a sense of joy and pride in the cowboy lifestyle while not forgetting the trials and tribulations it took to prevail.”

According to historians, in the early days of the rodeo, Black cowboys endured substantial discrimination. In a 2017 article in Smithsonian magazine, Roger Hardaway, a professor of history at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, said, “They used to not let Black cowboys rope in front of the crowd. They had to rope after everybody went home or the next morning.” And until recently, the common imagery for cowboys in Hollywood westerns was that of the rugged, gun-toting white guy played by actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. But it’s estimated that one in four cowboys who worked on the range were Black, making them an essential part of western history.

In March, Hazel’s western works are on view in a solo show at FoR Fine Art in Tucson, AZ. Derek Vandeberg, the gallery’s founder, says Hazel is one of his most popular artists. Collectors appreciate how the artist brings a modern aesthetic to traditional subjects, Vandeberg says: “His bold colors, large brush strokes, and bright underpaintings that show through give his work an immediate impact on the viewer.”

That approach to underpainting, in fact, is an important ingredient in Hazel’s creative process. In his portrait JOHNNY, the artist began by loading up his palette knife and then making a large swipe across the canvas. “What I love about the palette knife is that with each wipe, a myriad of color chords is revealed,” he says. “That stroke could be what I was expecting color-wise, or not. One stroke dictates the next, to the point where my original plan may go out the window. So, when I was painting JOHNNY, I realized I wanted to paint him realistically because the strokes dictated it.”

In the painting Hazel captures the likeness of rodeo bullfighter Johnny Yates Jr. in a profile, which harkens back to classical forms of portraiture. The lush, earth-toned underpainting imparts a certain ethereal quality reminiscent of the old masters—yet the piece is undeniably contemporary. Hazel wanted to convey Yates’ stoicism and confidence. As a rodeo bullfighter, he holds the dangerous job of protecting fallen bull riders—distracting the angry, one-ton animals while the riders safely escape the arena.

Often Hazel’s photo reference material is a black-and-white image. The artist relishes the freedom that allows to create his own color language within the monochromatic value structure. Although he paints in a number of genres including wildlife, landscapes, and cityscapes, he admits that he favors figurative works. “Humans interest me—their faces, their shapes, their stories,” he says. “It’s also a challenging subject, and the athlete in me enjoys that.”

The 6-foot-5-inch-tall Hazel was a college basketball player and fine-arts major at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. As one pundit quipped years ago, reveling in the double entendre, “Aaron Hazel knows his way around the paint.” (For those not familiar, “the paint” is a rectangular section of the basketball court in front of the hoop).

Hazel says he grew accustomed to juggling his dueling passions for basketball and art. Thinking back on the hectic times, he recalls rushing from basketball practice to art classes with sweat pouring down his face and an ice pack strapped to his back. On the team’s road trips, when he also had to finish drawing assignments, he would sketch his teammates on the bus. Once back on campus after away games, he pulled frequent all-nighters to meet deadlines for art projects—a full-court press lasting into the wee hours of the morning.

As a child growing up in Boise, ID, Hazel says he had dreamed of becoming a professional basketball player. But he also loved art and drew from an early age. Hazel credits his uncle, Dan Barsness, an accomplished painter who studied with Daniel Greene, with sparking his early interest in art.

When Hazel graduated from college, he originally planned to pursue a career in advertising. But then his uncle suggested that he study with his friend, the landscape painter Robert Moore. Barsness negotiated a deal, offering Moore frames from his business in exchange for painting workshops for his nephew.

Hazel considers his studies with Moore over the years to be one of the most valuable parts of his art education. It was Moore who helped him appreciate painters like Russian impressionist Nicolai Fechin, who kept the focus on simple shapes to create realistic interpretations of his subjects. “That approach influences my portraits today,” Hazel says. “Paint-laden, tactile, realistic faces tell the viewer where to look when paired with simple, flat backgrounds.”

While studying with Moore, Hazel began tending bar in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue to support himself. Soon fellow employees began commissioning his artwork, requesting portraits of their pets and families. When word got out to customers, they besieged him with more commissions. It turns out that some of the regulars were local heroes with big fan bases: The bar was a favorite watering hole for the city’s professional football team, the Seattle Seahawks. Hazel, a huge football fan, says he was thrilled and in his element. “I got a chance to know the players and talk deep football with them,” he says.

Soon the Seahawks players were commissioning paintings, requesting portraits of themselves in action on the field, making a tackle, scoring a touchdown, or celebrating a victory. Word spread to other teams’ players, too. A handful of players commissioned 10 or more paintings each; one player for the Baltimore Ravens eventually commissioned 17 works.

In 2014, when the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, Hazel knew it was time to quit his bartending job. Commissions were flourishing. “At that point I was already gaining the reputation as ‘the Seahawks artist,’” he says. “I was on the news, featured in magazines and on websites. I was getting requests from all sorts of fans. The Seahawks commissions propelled me into becoming a full-time artist.” Hazel continued creating sports-themed paintings through 2016 but gradually shifted his focus to other work, and galleries soon came calling. He still accepts a few commissions every year. These days his paintings hang in the corporate offices of Facebook, Starbucks, and Nike, and his works cost a bit more than in his early bartending days. As this story was going to press, Hazel was working on a painting for the prestigious March in Montana Auction in Great Falls, where it will go on the block along with works by top western artists.

Oddly enough, Hazel says, when the Seahawks lost the 2015 Super Bowl “in heart-wrenching fashion,” he felt a bit of relief—it slowed the momentum of his sports commissions. “Looking back, I am grateful for how it all unfolded,” he says. “It’s weird to say, but had the Seahawks won another Super Bowl, I would have been inundated with more sports scenes, and I might never have turned to more meaningful subjects.”

representation
Manitou Galleries, Santa Fe, NM; FoR Fine Art, Bigfork, MT, Whitefish, MT, and Tucson, AZ; A. Banks Gallery, Missoula, MT; Coeur d’Alene Galleries, Coeur d’Alene, ID; www.aaronhazel.com; Instagram: @ahaze2.

This story appeared in the February/March 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.