Evan Schwarze

Evan was raised in Dayton, Ohio where he began studying art at an early age. At the age of 5 he was accepted to the school of the Dayton Art Institute, three years ahead of the minimum age of 8. Study continued through high school before being awarded a scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

After graduation, Evan relocated to Chicago, Illinois where he began working as an independent illustrator for the advertising industry, providing artwork to clients such as McDonald's Corporation, Hyatt Hotels, and Coca Cola. In between deadlines he began traveling to places in the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Mexico and began to produce landscape paintings of the areas he was traveling to. Initially painting in watercolor, then switching to oil, he quickly produced a body of work and began showing at gallleries and corporate events in and around the Chicago area. "It was during this time that I made a conscious decision to paint the area where I wanted to live. And for me that was by the water, 85 and sunny. "

As the digital age took hold in the advertising world it forced a change from traditional media, such as paints, to digital software and files. Evan learned the software and produced art digitally for clients from his Chicago office and home in Oak Park. The technology had diminished the need for person to person meetings, and become a world of conference calls and files downloaded and uploaded to servers. "Along the way I realized part of what I enjoyed about the creation was the physical process. The software is just another media for creativity, but the actual work, the motion, is so very different when painting..."
The technology had given him the freedom to still provide art to his clients from "...anywhere with a reliable intenet connection...So in 2005, we jumped."

Leaving the corporate world behind, Evan and his wife Stephanie moved to the tiny Caribbean island of Culebra, and opened and operated an art gallery for 10 years. Traveling from Culebra Evan began to exhibit his work in a few shows in the southeastern United States. By 2015 Evan's show schedule had them spending most of their time in the States where Evan has received numerous awards for his work. In 2018, he and his wife began splitting time between Vero Beach, Florida and the Caribbean.

Focusing on the clear water and natural landscape of the Caribbean islands and the US coast, Evan is now almost exclusively painting in oils. He captures a dimensionality to his work that pulls the viewer directly into the environment. Beginning with a warm tone over the entire canvas, he builds a compositional study of light and dark translucent tones before beginning to introduce color. He uses layers of directional strokes of color that help force the depth of field and provide the underlayment of a rich and impressionistic color palette. Adding color in almost calligraphic strokes, he conveys the transparency and light, and the movement of the water. The landmass that frames the water becomes almost sculptural. He moves the form through space, with light and shadow, using a series of brush stokes scaling up in size to manipulate and distort focus, shape, and form creating a painting that breathes of live and movement

The quality of Evan's work is evident in the strength of composition, his sensitivity to light and color, and his ability to capture the the beauty of his subject. He sees in terms of design, positive and negative spaces, and form described by light and shadow. He transforms his landscapes into works of art that capture the natural beauty and feel of the area, and brings us closer to some of the places we call paradise.

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