Ned Evans, Bingo, Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas, 41 x 41 inches

When a surfer catches a wave perfectly, for a few ecstatic moments his body, the surfboard and the sea become one, flying with the wind toward the implacable beach. Malibu, Baja, El Salvador, Hawaii: the Meccas of surfing have been the classrooms of Ned Evans for nearly a half-century, just as were the art classes of Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Larry Bell and Craig Kaufman at the University of California at Irvine.

Evans’ exuberant canvases, inspired by surf and strand, evolved from “natural influences of the ocean, transferring its movement and energy into abstracts of color, strokes, patterns and layers,” according to the artist, who states:

“The physicality of surfing and the immersion in the medium translate into what happens in the studio. It’s not conscious—it just happens for me. I like to immerse myself in the process of the painting and the liquidity of the paint. Everything’s done wet on wet, and it carries right over into a similar sensation when you’re surfing. In other words, it’s about getting lost, losing the gravitational pull, or at least suspending it all for a moment.”

Evans’ paintings have been featured in more than 100 exhibitions in such leading venues as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, the La Jolla Museum of Art, and the Laguna Beach Museum of Contemporary Art.

See more artwork by Ned Evans here