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 Paulden Evans has
been painting professionally for the past ten years. He is a
certified interior designer in California and is a California
general contractor who has built many spec and custom homes
throughout Southern California.
He has received honors and awards of excellence for his design
work from MAME, SAM, and ELAN within the Sales and Marketing
Council of Southern California and has been honored twice by the
Professional Builders Magazine for his design work.
Paulden, who goes
by his first name professionally, makes us look at the familiar in
new ways by playing with, and sometimes even contradicting, our
expectations of how art should look and behave. His large-scale
paintings, in oil enamel and metal are abstract, and many pieces
are haunted by almost wraithlike figures. And yet, even as his
work falls clearly within artistic traditions that are centuries
old, it seems simultaneously to result from purely natural
processes.
He uses metal
rather than canvas as his medium, coating the surface with layers
of pigment. The top layers are cracked as with age or tectonic
movement so that the bottom layers show through, creating
unexpected flickers of color, reminiscent of specks of ore or
jewels. Not all art can withstand the environment. Either because
the materials are too fragile or the subject matter requires a
more peaceful setting. But Paulden’s paintings are designed to be
displayed both inside and out.
For the past four
years Paulden, who has a studio in Riverside, has moved in a
different direction. His new abstracts are studies in color.
Layers and layers of paint create a textured surface that suggests
fabric and weave an eye busying combination of colors. Creator of
the well known “The Visitors” and “The Travelers,” his work is on
permanent display in such locations as the Robert Mondavi Wine and
Food Center in Costa Mesa, The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation,
Taliesin West, Scottsdale, AZ, and in many corporate and private collections.
Artist Picture by: Michael J. Elderman
Orange Picture by:
Carla Conti Bender |
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