CLEVELAND DEAN

Gravitating to the influences of the early American Abstract Expressionist movement and Asian calligraphy, Cleveland pulls from various elements and life experience and has formed an individual style that reflects his vision, intellect, passions, transgressions, and love. The centered ideology is that which is to evoke individual thought for the viewer as opposed to being conditioned to what one should think or see. As a self-taught artist, he refuses to be “professionally” schooled to techniques of art, asserting that a true artist disciplines oneself to determine their own style, and the appropriate means and medium(s) for expression.

“My work is that which bridges the unconscious and conscious; painted in depictions abstracted from my psyche. This can only be done by stepping outside my self-sanctuary and embracing that which exists deep within my soul.”

“Many times when I paint I black out, go into a trance and awake to realize I have just given birth to expression. I do not know the individual within me who paints. My physical frame is simply its vessel to dissertate my mentality in form. I wish not to know this entity. I do not wish for my physical existence to influence this metaphysical being. I allow it to create movement within a still depiction, letting my soul dance on canvas”.