PAUL ECKE

Born 1953   Los Angeles, CA
Studio: San Juan Capistrano, California
Subject matter: various: meditative mantras, human life journeys, passions
Abstract
Mixed media

Museums:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila, the Philippines                  
Daytona, Florida’s Museum of Arts and Science
Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Michigan
De Saisset Museum of Art, Santa Clara

Education:
1976 Graduated California State University, Fullerton: Bachelor of Arts Degree
1977 Graduated California State University, Fullerton: Teaching Credential
1977 Class works at USD, La Jolla
1977-1984 Taught Art in Orange County, CA Public Schools
1985 Commenced Full Time Painting Career
1990 and 1995 Class work at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
2001 Class work at UCLA, Paintings and Drawings Department

Periodicals:
1991 5 Page Feature Story, International Fine Art Collector Magazine, September Issue
1991 Front Page Story, “Hot Artist”, Los Angeles Times, September 15 Issue
1992 4 Page Feature Article, California Homes and Lifestyles, March Issue
1993 4 Page Feature Article, International Fine Art Collector Magazine, May Issue
1993 First Museum Acquisition, Daytona, Florida Museum of Arts and Science
1994 Commission for Cover, Orange County Magazine Annual Edition
1996 2 Page Feature Article, “Revealed”, Orange Coast Magazine, December Issue
2002 Feature Article, San Diego Downtown News, June Issue
2002 NBC News Interview, “Spotlight On Artists” July Segment
2003 Art News Magazine, Featured Ad, June Issue
2005 Cover, Gallery Guide, West Coast, April Issue
2005 Cover, Gallery Guide, National International Collectors Edition, May Issue
2006 5 Page Feature Story, “Paul Ecke in Laguna”, Space Magazine, April Issue
2007  Gallery section editorial, California Homes, September-October Issue
2007 Editorial, LUXE Magazine, Fall Issue
2007 Desert Living Magazine, November
2007 Space Magazine, October
2008 Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot, October 31-November 6
2008 California Homes, December

                   
Solo Exhibitions:
1990-1993  Sterling Gallery, La Jolla, CA
1990-2005 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
1996 Quest Gallery, Taos,
1996 Gallery IBah, Ubud Bali, Indonesia
1997 ASF (AIDS Service Foundation), Orange County, CA
1997 APLA (AIDS Project Los Angeles), Los Angeles, CA
1997-1999 Gallery Adrienne, La Jolla, CA         
1999 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2001 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2001  Adrienne Adler Contemporary Fine Art, La Jolla, CA
2002  Ramsden Morrison Gallery, San Diego, CA
2005 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2006 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2007 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2007 Space Gallery, Denver, CO
2008 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2008 Space Gallery, Denver, CO
2009 Gebert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2009 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions:
1990-1993 Sterling Gallery, La Jolla, CA
1990-2005 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
1992 Gallerie Arlette G’maray, Paris, France
1992-1993  Royal Palm Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
1993-1997 Galeries Thierry Salvador, Paris, France
1994 Elaine Sternberg Gallery, Chicago, IL
1994-1995 Sterling Marchetti Gallery, New York, NY
1993-1995   ‘Art Alive’, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
1997-1999 Gallery Adrienne, La Jolla, CA
1997 Feast on Art, Orange County Museum of Art, CA
1998 Gallery Adrienne, San Francisco, CA
1998-2000 Emerald City Gallery, Seattle, WA
2001 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2001 Glass Garage Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2001 Adrienne Adler Contemporary Fine Art, La Jolla, CA
2002 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2002 Ramsden Morrison Gallery, San Diego, CA
2003 Glass Garage Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Ramsden Morrison Gallery, San Diego, CA
2003 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2004 Dolby-Chadwick, San Francisco, CA
2004 Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2004 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2004 Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2006 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2006 Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2006 Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2007 Chiaroscuro Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2007 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
2007 Laguna Beach Art Museum, CA
2008 Gebert Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Space Gallery, Denver, CO
2008 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach
2009 William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach
                                                     
                                                                       
Biography:
Paul Ecke is a mid-career painter of contemporary non-figurative and figurative works on canvas and panel.  His works are an amalgam of color, texture and movement achieved through application of oil and acrylic paints to canvas, all applied by brush, hand and even trowel.  The results are magnificent, colorful, thought and emotion-provoking images that convey the inner strength, conviction and complexity of the artist.

Paul Ecke was educated at California State University, Fullerton, receiving degrees in art with emphasis in ceramic arts and painting.  His classical training taught him to represent the human form.   His skill as a ceramicist affects his paintings, giving them a three-dimensional quality through the application of textural media to his works on canvas.

Regardless of the subject, Paul Ecke’s work continues to evoke deep soulful responses from viewers who often find themselves mesmerized in front of Ecke’s canvases.  People are drawn by the expressive brushstrokes, colors and textures that have become his signature.

With his formal education complete, Ecke pursued a career teaching art in the California public school system.  He headed the entire district art program for Centralia School District of Buena Park, California.  Ecke enjoyed his nine years as an educator but longed to pursue a full-time career in the creation of his own art.

Paul Ecke has been a full-time contributor to the contemporary art world since 1985.  His works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manila, Philippines and the Daytona, Florida’s Museum of Arts and Science.  He has shown in galleries in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Palm Springs, Florida, the Philippines and Bali, Indonesia.  His works are in many private and corporate collections including those of Universal Studios, Jimmy Z Sportswear, Taco Bell, Flojet Corporation, Carsey Warner Productions and Dionne Warwick’s collection.  Works by Paul Ecke are already slated to be part of endowment of contemporary paintings and graphics art to London’s Museum of Contemporary Art.  Paul Ecke’s has been the featured artist in numerous art publications.

Ecke’s compositions are based on abstractions.  Each painting’s quality lied in is power to suggest many rich and varied analogies, however diverse they may be.  The works are rich in inspired concepts that follow a stream of thought has always fascinated the artist.  With his series “Quadrants”, Ecke continues to examine the abstract notions of time, space, thought, the philosophy of color and their relationship to the human experience.  The group of paintings assembled for this exhibition, “Quadrants”, deals directly with four stages of man’s spiritual development.  The viewer can see throughout this series a delineation of the works into panels or segments that make up an entire piece.  Like the stages of our spiritual development: “The Athlete”, “The Warrior”, the Statesman” and ultimately “the Spirit” these works reflect life’s journey and weaves together the tapestry of our life experience.  The result, sensually balanced, vibrantly colored works that exude a richness of texture and depth of creativity.

In his series “Fractals,” Ecke explores the complexities of human inter-relationships in the form of the line, pattern and color.  Ecke addresses the timeless journey of the eternal acting as a shamen.  He in turn allows us to confront the passages of birth, life and death.  In nature as well as mathematics, fractals are geometric objects that in their basest form contain self-similar structures that are repeated in the whole.  Thus, everything comes from and is composed of fractals.  For, Ecke the fractal becomes his meditative mantra and his path-road into this life experience.  From the child to the man, life is composed of repeating relationships and inter-connecting journeys.  His stripes transform into intersections and his circles become cycles of consciousness.  Each artwork is created through applying multi-layers of paint and media and then stripping them away.  Thus, even in his process, Ecke demonstrates that all can be deconstructed and constructed again from simple elements.  With each piece the viewer is then asked to engage in their own personal dialogue of their roadmap. 

Due to be released is Ecke’s “Passions and Addictions” suite.  With these works the canvases are built up, scratched back, painterly and loosely sketched.  Yet unlike Warhol’s “Campbell Soup Cans” as Pop or Duchamp’s “Urinal” as Dada, Ecke brings a contemporary voice to the context of art.  The audience as consumer is asked to be a participant as well as be judged and judge others.  In his painting “Tall or Venti”, Starbucks coffee cups are patterned along the canvas.  The logo is elevated to icon.  The question is asked “How is Starbucks equated with happiness?”  When did consumerism and big business dictate our morals?  When did the path to enlightenment become an end to the sale of a product?  Ever more deeply, Ecke explores the complexities and dichotomies of living in a capitalistic culture.  How does one reconcile a company putting out of small business yet at the same time providing expansive employee benefits?  How does one justify global prosperity and find fault with eradicating cultures?  Ecke examines this fine line we walk every day, a line most tend to ignore as long as it feeds our passions and addictions.