From the age of four, Don Coen could be found drawing and painting—even on the family dining room table, his mother wiping clean the hours of pencil marks left by her son on the enamel table top. Growing up on a farm on the high plains of eastern Colorado, the surrounding landscapes filled Coen's artwork. Eventually, these same landscapes brought him face to face with the nameless presence of the migrant worker. Caught by the beauty of the laborers working in the fields, Coen began painting giant portraits of migrant workers across America. Featured in the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Coen’s work abstains from making a political statement of any kind, seeking instead to speak to the humanity of its subjects and viewers.

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  • susan

    It's about time some one honors these human beings that work hard with little pay and horrible conditions. "these people's beauty and what they are".

  • Barbara

    That Don Coen saw the individuals and invited us to do the same by showing them to us. He has captured their human-ness and their pride. xx

  • Yvonne

    The heart and soul of the Artist....he paints a portrait of what really is....and they are all very moving.

  • Yasmin Alam

    I wondered about the families of the people murdered abroad by these misguided men, unleashing hugel levels of the most sophisticated weaponry on people the other side of the world , people trying to eke a living out of their lands which the Americans believe they can take what they want and dictate the price. Perhaps they can return and offer nice activities and counselling for those grieving and destroyed families?

  • eve

    Tried twice, played a few min. and then it goes black

  • Page 1

  • Learn more about Don Coen and his work.
  • Hear more real life stories of how gestures of compassion create spaces of shared humanity.
  • In what way can your own presence be a way of paying respect to your shared place among others?

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