Jay Slean

is a native of California, but his artistic drive takes him in many directions. He studied at Master’s Institute and West Valley College. He has worked as a graphic designer for clients as diverse as Net Tripper, Hewlett Packard, New Things West, Pet Fetch, Market Answers Inc., Webforce-5, Dr. Seuss, NASA STELLAR, NASA TEN/ATCC, Gumby, Gigalabs, Digital Club House Network, SIIG, Notebookmall.com, First Tennessee Bank, Ensemble Solutions, Junior Achievement of Santa Clara County, Cosmo Software and DPI.

He has an affinity for and commitment to preservation of the outdated, anachronistic and just plain old. His talents include home restoration and repair, automobile restoration and repair, upholstery and tailoring, as well as his fine arts skills in painting, sculpting and design. Restoration projects include a 1926 bungalow, 1959 craftsman cabin, nose art for a Boeing B-29 Super Fortress bomber, 1956 Buick, 1959 Rambler and matching 1964-1966 Chrysler Imperials. In addition, he has acted as an archivist with the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum and holds a personal collection of books and materials chronicling California and Western History through the 1850’s to the 1960’s.

Several themes recur in his paintings: The landscape of the West before the advent of westward expansion, an appreciation of the female form in its many shapes and sizes, space exploration, and utopian visions of Mid-Century Americana. He prefers to work in quick-drying Acrylics so that he can create the layers and depth of the color palette that gives his work its deep chromatic intensity. Influences on his art range widely: Chesley Bonestell, Ward Kimball, Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, John Waterhouse and Frederick Remington are all inspirations for his vision of the realistic past and the idealized future.