Dolores Chiappone has revisited consistent themes throughout her work. Her direction was established in 1959 in her late 20’s with Untitled, a painting she considers the foundation of her mature style. It is a portrait of a woman transforming into a filigree of patterns, spirits, and phantoms. The composition is a vision of a world in motion, breaking apart and recombining in unexpected ways. Chiappone arrived at this approach not through formal training but as a consequence of psychological trauma and the profound effects of experimental medical treatments with LSD.

In 1957 as a young housewife and mother of two, she suffered a nervous breakdown due to domestic violence compounded by postpartum depression after the birth of her second child. Chiappone was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles and after a brief stay under observation and treatment, she was advised by her psychiatrist, Dr. Oscar Janiger, to separate herself from her husband and parents for her own survival. After her release from the hospital, Chiappone was taken to Mazatlán, Mexico, by her husband, who left her there alone with her two young children. After a month, unable to care for herself or her children, she was retrieved by her husband. When they returned to the US, she was considered an unfit mother by her husband’s parents and was convinced to give up her children to be raised by them. 

Emotionally broken, Chiappone returned to Los Angeles in 1958 where she restarted her therapy with Dr. Janiger. For several years, Janiger had been conducting clinical studies into the therapeutic benefits of LSD, including research into the effects of LSD on artists and their creative processes. Janiger included Chiappone in these studies. Chiappone and his other subjects were administered a dose of LSD and asked to make a series of drawings from observation of an object in his office. The progressive effect on the subject’s motor skills and psychological state over the course of the drug’s impact could be seen in dramatic changes as each drawing became looser and more abstract. 

Recognizing her deep need for art, Dr. Janiger introduced Chiappone to others with shared interests under his supervision. This circle of artists would have informal gatherings at a writer’s house at Big Bear Lake in the mountains near Los Angeles. Here they took LSD and sat outside under the stars. Under the influence of the drug she felt, “I was coming apart into a billion little pieces, the fragments of my being returning into a new form.” This experience had a profound spiritual effect on Chiappone and her art. She describes her encounter with LSD in positive terms: “LSD changed who I was dramatically, and it allowed me to survive.” 

Her use of the drug culminated in 1960 with a “trip” she recalled 60 years later as “the most intensely beautiful and profound experience of my entire life.” Nevertheless, she found the artwork she made while on the drug inferior. As she painted, colors and forms seen through the filter of the drug's influence appeared supernaturally vivid and alive, but later―after the effects of the drug had dissipated―the same painting seemed to her dull and lifeless.

Chiappone decided to completely stop taking LSD, and in 1960 again at a critical juncture in her life, returned to Mexico, settling in the vibrant artist’s community of Tlaquepaque in the mountains near Guadalajara. Leaving her past behind, Chiappone developed a strong emotional connection to Mexico. Her paintings became increasingly influenced by a nation with deep roots in diverse indigenous histories and the legacy of colonial conquest. From her first encounter with the archeological site of Teotihuacán as a tourist years before in 1951, to many subsequent visits to this and other sites, Chiappone considers pre-Columbian art as a primary influence on her work, especially its powerful symbolic animal iconography.

In Tlaquepaque, Chiappone met and began a lifelong friendship with the innovative Mexican ceramic artist Jorge Wilmot who had a workshop in nearby Tonalá. Wilmot became an important mentor to Chiappone. He introduced her to local artists and artisans and gave her access to his large library of artist’s books and literature. There she discovered for the first time the work of Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, and Remedios Varo, key figures in the surrealist movement in Mexico. 

Chiappone established her own woodworking workshop, creating hand carved furniture and picture frames. This provided a source of steady income that gave Chiappone the independence to continue painting and develop her art. Working illegally, Chiappone was required to leave Mexico every six months and re-enter the country with a new visa. Living a nomadic life out of necessity, she also spent time in Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City. While living in the San Ángel neighborhood in Mexico City, she found inspiration in the many murals by Diego Rivera and the recently opened National Museum of Anthropology with its vast collection of pre-Columbian treasures.

In 1969 Chiappone abruptly moved to New York City and decided to re-establish contact with her estranged family. She continued to live a life on the move, going from New York to New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Arizona with many return trips to her beloved Mexico.

Chiappone’s art reflects a lifelong investigation into the nature of the mind, perception, and reality. Her dream life is a rich and active tool for the discovery of hidden, underlying connections between people and the natural world, a world where perceived boundaries are the illusion, and reality is the constant flux of energy, influence and change. An avid reader, her work is inspired by a broad range of topics, including physics, astronomy, and the science of fractal geometry, which further reinforces her intuition about the kinetic nature of the world. In her life and her art, movement and transformation are central.

Without relying on preparatory drawings or direct observation, Chiappone begins each painting by freely brushing turpentine washes of color directly onto canvas. Forms and figures from her memories and unconscious slowly coalesce from initially random densities of pigment. Her method recalls a technique used by the British 18th century landscape artist, Alexander Cozens (1717-1786). Cozens published “A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape” in 1785, a treatise that demonstrates his use of random ink blots on paper to initiate the creation of imaginary landscapes. Chiappone follows a similar process in painting to convey her own vision of existence, an animistic view where objects, plants, and animals all contain a strong life energy. 

With a vast body of work created over decades expressing a rich and diverse world of beauty, but also sorrow, and the many contradictions of being, Chiappone reveals the true essence of a life lived through art.