I love the messy brush that makes a neat stroke. An American artist, from the San Francisco Bay Area, I got to know Wayne Thiebaud at UC Davis. “Good artists borrow and great artists steal”, so with bright light I stole his 'heavy brush' sensuality and his California color. Oil is my preferred medium and I often mix it up with a kitchen blender, using eggs and other mixtures to make a mayonnaise-like medium that I call ‘emulsion’. I experiment with materials restlessly- recklessly? I stole Anselm Kiefer. Now, when I paint I feel like an alchemist searching for an unreachable prize- a paradise that I ache and pine for. I zoom in up close with a grid and graphically search and search. But of course, there is no paradise. Facing that truth is where the focus of much of my work comes through, with pictures that are physical, modern, earnest, and unsentimental. Originally my paintings were completely non-objective, abstract. They soon switched to landscapes with far off horizons and narratives of dark longing. Currently dancing females have emerged center stage and my painting appears to be moving beyond ‘post-modernism’ to a place less cynical and ironic. Now I am interested in a back to basics, meta-modern earnestness. But still the most astoundingly deep and existential thrill for me comes when I recognize that I have finished a painting and find that my art is not mine; it just grew on the wall.

Darren Jekel

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Lullaby Pose by Darren Jekel

Oil painting

Blank Stare, Pencil by Darren Jekel

Pencil drawing

Darren's Garden by Darren Jekel

Oil painting

New Day by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing

Gift by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing

The Loveseat by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing

Blinding Light by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing

Picasso Pose by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing

Chiles Valley by Darren Jekel

Oil painting

Free Falling by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing

Diablo Range by Darren Jekel

Oil painting

Holding My Last Breath by Darren Jekel

Charcoal drawing