Guest Artist Dean Evans

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Martinez Shoreline No. 1
8”x10”
$350.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
View from McEwen Rd No. 1
8”x10”
$350.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Live Oak No. 3
16”x20”
$500.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
McEwen Road No. 2
16”x20”
$500.00

DEAN EVANS GREW UP IN CLAYTON AND REMEMBERS A MORE RURAL ENVIRONMENT THAN EXISTS TODAY.
“My paintings are about trying to preserve what things used to be like, the rural quality, especially in Contra Costa County,” he says. “I’ve watched that disappear over time. Around 2008 I moved to Martinez and became familiar with the Carquinez region. It surprised me how little it had changed, compared to the rest of the Bay Area. Towns like Crockett, Port Costa, Martinez, Benicia, even Vallejo have been able to maintain that small town waterfront character. I’ve become almost obsessed with painting that, before it disappears.”

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Martinez Shoreline No. 5
16”x20”
$500.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Martinez Tanker No. 9
11”x14”
$400.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Snake Road No. 2
8”x10”
$350.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Snake Road No. 1
8”x10”
$350.00

IN ADDITION TO LANDSCAPES OF THE LOCAL AREA, EVANS’ OIL PAINTINGS ALSO DEPICT OLD TOWN BUILDINGS AND THE DECAYING ARTIFACTS OF INDUSTRY SUCH AS THOSE FOUND ON MARE ISLAND.
His current works are detailed and realistic, painted with a variety of palette knives. “I always wanted to be a painter. Growing up in Clayton, I liked to go out and sketch things.” In high school, he modeled his style after James Enemark, a well-known watercolor artist and teacher who painted rustic barns and rural scenes in a realistic manner. “I really got drawn into that genre. But when I went to college, no one was painting in that sort of style. In the 1980s there was a trend toward conceptual, non-objective work, and I painted in an abstract style for a while.”

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Briones Park No. 3
16”x20”
$500.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Briones Crest Trail No. 3
16”x20”
$500.00
Sold! September 17

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Mount Diablo from the Crest Trail No. 1
20”x24”
$600.00

Dean Evans
Oil Painting
Briones Crest Trail No. 4
16”x20”
$500.00

Evans graduated from San Jose State with a BFA and MFA and began a career teaching art, eventually specializing in teaching students with disabilities. When he picked up his painting some years later, he gravitated back to his earlier, more realistic style. Now retired, he still teaches art in the Mount Diablo School District as a substitute. “I’ve lived in other places, but I’ve always come back, this is the place that has everything … near a big city with museums and restaurants, near mountains, the ocean. My wife and I enjoy hiking and being outdoors.” Click here for a PDF with more information about Dean Evans.