The Faraway Nearby

The enigmatic American artist Georgia O’Keeffe flourished in the desert solitude where her creativity and vision thrived and was challenged by its dangerous energies, its desolate and hard beauty. In John Murrell’s The Faraway Nearby, Georgia O’Keeffe resigns herself to an old age spent in the auburn and tawny light of her beloved Faraway mountains without the company of others until a stranger enters her life. Juan Hamilton, a young artist and handyman, befriends the elderly O’Keeffe, becoming the eyes for the almost-blind artist, and the cushion between her and the outside world. Hamilton remained O’Keeffe’s companion for over a decade, and it is in the complexities of this friendship that John Murrell explores the uncompromising nature of the artist in this elegant and moving portrayal.