Meet Dan

Dan Louth is an abstract and figurative painter based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. His works are influenced by artists from pop and high culture, ranging from Rothko and Basquiat to Grateful Dead poster designer Stanley Mouse. Primarily focusing on nature and internal reflection, Dan's works are often geometric, brightly colored, and otherworldly. Since moving to Carmel, the artist has been experimenting with contrasting colors and mixed media color-blocking.

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Creativity has always been an important part of Dan's life. He began drawing and painting at a young age; close friends and family would always have his work pinned on their walls. It was during this time----his formative years as an artist-----that the bright colors and psychedelic designs of concert posters made their lasting impact. For his adult life, Dan directed his creative energies towards software design and development, keeping painting as a hobby. Now, after a twenty year hiatus, he works as a full-time artist.  

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Dan works primarily with acrylic and oil on canvas. Many of his works, however, incorporate media like bandages or paper cut-outs to create layering and texture. He prefers to stretch his own canvas over wood blocks and likes to include the wooden sides in the compositions. 

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In his more recent, Carmel-inspired works, Dan evokes landscapes and seascapes through contrasting color and texture. His newer works come closer to pure abstraction than his older compositions, which often included botanical imagery. Pieces like Carmel Sunshine, pictured below, bring to mind heatwaves and crystal-clear oceans with warm oranges and aquas, but the claustrophobic darkness around the edge of the frame and even within the sun evokes tension. The juxtaposition between the dynamism of the colors and the rigid geometry of the underlayered rectangular forms further highlights that discomfort: the tension between real and artificial, between land and sea, and between humanity and the vision we would impose on the natural world.

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