Born in Burbank, California in 1950, with an MFA from UC Irvine in 1974, Ned Evans has lived in Venice, California since the early 1970s. Working primarily in painting in acrylic and mixed media on canvas, he has also spent years exploring photography, collage, and resin and mixed media sculptural reliefs. While his work is unquestionably influenced by the Southern California landscape, ultimately and inevitably his reconstructing and building edifices and foundations, on top of which exist the nuances of illusion and light. He has shown in countless solo and group exhibitions all over the world since 1971. His work has been collected by the likes of Robert Downey Jr., Ed Ruscha, Merv Griffith, The Broad, and the LACMA to name a few.

“Emotive rather than purely visual, the surf-inspired paintings of Venice, California’s Ned Evans are obviously evocative of the ocean’s sway, but are not depictions so much as a collective of physical and sensory reinterpretations of the surf. After over six decades of surfing and painting, a symbiosis occurs between the two, a deeply interwoven relationship feeds both passions. Evans has compiled a wellspring of experiences of and from the ocean and its countless perspectives - from the sand of the beaches to aerial overviews, from absolute immersion to riding the wave and sitting on a board looking back to the land’s horizon. Derived from dream, from memory, from the ephemeral experience the ocean can give to those who love it.”

- Ned Evans

Jacob Ells is a surfboard designer and artist based in Ojai, California. His “alternative” surfboards beautifully thread the needle of form and function, while his fluid, geometric artworks tap into meditative flow states of the subconscious mind. Jacob’s airbrush work feels like a modern rendition of the psychedelic movement in 1970s surf culture, but is a cosmically informed style of his own design.

“What I’ve learned making art is it’s a practice in yielding. What am I yielding to? It goes by many names, the Force, Source, God, etc. I am yielding to the energy of nature, allowing it to move through me and guide my movements. The way the art comes into form depends on the lens through which it flows. In this case it flows through me, and “me” is a collection of my experiences in this life. What have I experienced that bends this Light? Childhood artistic expressions through drawing and painting initiated me into this process. Teenage and early adulthood years drew me into mathematics, physics, and chemistry as I studied, and subsequently practiced engineering. My late twenties catapulted me onto an adventure sailing across oceans, diving deep into the mystical open spaces only the vast sea can offer. Upon returning, building surfboards became the way that energy moved through me, continuing to today, and it was on the open canvas that a shaped surfboard offers that my art had space to evolve. It is obvious now how one thing led to another, and the art is clearly a culmination of all of these experiences.”

- Jacob Ells