About Us
Photo credit: Autumn Layne Stein
About Alexander:
From a lineage of artists, scholars, and revolutionaries for social justice, Alexander Fals is a genre all his own. His paintings are not just wall hangings, but windows into a magical world where all things have beauty and mystery. The mineral pigments he uses are colors that have been underground in ancient volcanic deposits, lying dormant for centuries. Each color has a unique mineral composition, many of which are naturally flecked with Mika, stones and crystals.
Born in Naples NY, 1990, to mother Lauren Sherwood (Naples, NY), and father Roberto Fals (Popayán, Colombia), Alexander spent his seventeenth year as an exchange student living with his Grandfather, Dr. Jaime Fals Borda, in Colombia. He then returned to New York to study Environmental Conservation and Ecology at Finger Lakes Community College. After leaving school in 2011, Fals decided to blend his love for ecology, evolution, and Colombia. He moved to Popayán and began painting, using a technique regionally pioneered by his Uncles, Henry and Billy Fals: foraging for vibrant naturally occurring pigments and processing them into paint using a strong yet biodegradable adhesive.
Alexander Fals and Hayley Dayis are a couple that work with foraged mineral pigments sourced from volcanic soils in the region of Cauca, Colombia. Both of them were born and raised in the upstate New York Finger Lakes Region, and discovered the art of natural pigment painting at different points along their journeys.
About Hayley:
Hayley Dayis was raised with an appreciation for philosophy, the arts, and the rhythms of land. Her work slows down time to invite curiosity, deep thought and catharsis. The natural pigments that she uses in the creation of her current work infuse each piece with the subtle majesty of the Earth’s color spectrum while paying homage to the innate, yet too often overlooked, reciprocity and dependency between humans and land.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature from Purchase College in 2014, Hayley traveled extensively throughout the United States and Mexico, and in the process discovered her love for painting as a way to visually log her experiences and discoveries. In 2017, after attending an event in Mexico that raised awareness about water health and pollution, Hayley quickly became interested in finding non-chemical painting methods. This search led her to her partner Alexander Fals, natural pigment painter, who introduced her to his family’s technique of painting with foraged pigments from the region of Cauca, Colombia where she now lives and paints for half of each year.
About the Pigments
Political/Social Context of Painting with Colombian Earth
Colombia is one of the most biodiverse and culturally rich areas of the world. This land’s wealth of resources and beauty has made it a focal point for trade and admiration, in addition to exploitation for profit and devastating acts of violence that have repeatedly harmed and displaced the land’s inhabitants for decades.
As artists with United States citizenship living part of each year in Cauca, an area of Colombia that has suffered, and continues to suffer from, many crimes against humanity and land, we acknowledge that elements of our convenience-oriented American lifestyle is made possible by the exploitation of Colombia and its people. Therefore, we feel it is our responsibility in painting with the pigments of this land to honor and uplift the sacred beauty of Colombia while educating audiences in the US and the greater world about this land’s story, both dark and light.
We currently offer Natural Pigment Painting Workshops each summer/fall in Rochester, NY (see “Upcoming Events”) which include a presentation on our pigment collection processes in Colombia, and information on how to respectfully forage for natural pigments anywhere on the planet. We are also in the process of designing a winter artist residency in Popayán, the capital of Cauca, that will offer both local Colombian artists and artists from around the world a platform to amplify their voices through artwork, engage in peaceful cultural exchange, and bring education and exposure to painting with pigments from this underrepresented and unique region of Colombia.
Pigment Information
In modern Western life, soil often goes unnoticed. While most of us walk upon it without a second thought, we forget that we couldn’t exist without it. Our planet’s soil is the most complex, life-sustaining, nutrient-rich substance that we have found so far in our universe. Everything we consume, everything we eat, everything we experience is dependent on healthy soil. Even artwork.
The practice of soil/Earth painting dates back to prehistoric art, the proof of which has only been preserved in caves left undisturbed by humans or natural elements. As time has gone on, mineral pigments have continued to be the basis of all painting practices all over the world. Before there were synthetic colors and dyes, all paints were made with mineral pigments.Today, it is much less common for people to paint with purely mineral pigments, but nonetheless it is still practiced in many parts of the world.
The predominant soil type in Cauca, the region of Colombia where we source the mineral pigments used in our work, is referred to as Andisol. Andisols are volcanic soils that form from volcanic ash and glass and other pyroclastic fragments (relates to fragments of rock erupted by a volcano). The texture of these soils is clay-like and highly porous, resulting in an accumulation of stable complexes of both organic and mineral materials. This contributes to the wide array of colors: black, rust orange, white, grey, lavender, maroon, light green, yellow, pink, and more.
We consider clay and earth pigment paints to be the highest quality paints that even money can’t buy, and we appreciate most of all the meaning that is derived from foraging it ourselves directly from the ground and knowing where the colors of each brushstroke originated.
Book a Workshop
Book an unforgettable natural pigment painting workshop with your friends and family! Pigments and art supplies will be provided, and each person will go home with an original natural pigment painting of their own creation.