soCurio | art is for everyone

Born in New York City, Dean currently resides in the SF/Bay Area, where he has been painting for many years. Images included on this site are from several series over the past few years, as cescribed below: MUSICAL CHAIRS. Borrowing from the childrens game of the same name, these paintings are meant to parody of the current economic crisis, in which someone will lose out needlessly as a result of a sort of capricious game playing. Moreover the empty chairs are rendered in a decrepit, decomposing style to suggest that, in the final analysis, all the players have lost. The series - LE VOYAGE is based on several visits to France over the past decade. Part cultural discovery and part homage, the paintings include more traditional still life and landscape genres, often combined, such as the iconic café bowls, fleur de lys, red poppies and sunflowers. A regional palette of colors is used, while the surfaces are heavily distressed to give an aged or weathered appearance, to mimic the rich history and ancient frescoes from this region. A few of these paintings are mixed media, and incorporate pages torn from discarded books in French. PAINTED WORDS are mixed media paintings inspired by literature. Pages have been torn from books mixed into the overal compositions, painted over, and then scraped ramdomly to reveal fragments of text. Also included in this series are four FLORA AND FAUNA, images, commissioned by the CIty of Emeryville. Each of the works is titled after: The Man Who Planted Trees, The Secret Garden, The Birds, and The Highest Tide. These will exhibit in the CIty of Emeryville\'s bus shelters in 2011.