We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Oscar Pearson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Oscar, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made (either in terms of time or money)? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

For survival one needs needs, food, clothes, shelter. But for happiness and satisfaction it is necessary to have space, mental and physical space. This year I built myself a studio. A place to work, practice, learn, and contemplate without interruption. Not only do I now have that space but by building it myself I learned much and have the confidence and knowledge to do it again. Find the space, build the studio, it can be anything from an organized kitchen table to an entire warehouse. Whatever it is for you, cultivate that space a sow those creative seeds.

Oscar, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in the little beach town formerly called “Grover City” on the central coast of California. My parents settled here in the 80’s. Small towns are underrepresented in the greater art world my hometown’s meager art culture makes it no wonder. However, growing up at the beach had its advantages, and a peculiar influence. The leftover hippie vibes and the surrounding rural landscape made a lasting impression on me. Bordered by the unfettered coastline is a patchwork of wilderness and cropland homesteaded by opportunistic farmers of the previous century and worked by migrant laborers today. In childhood I remember gleaning tomatillos for salsa with my best friend and his mother, a retired farmworker. As an adolescent I recollect mid-day trysts at the sun-drenched rural outskirts, and trespassing at night to swim in heated pools at fancy resorts. Now my feelings toward the locale are divided. It is a bohemian vibrant paradise and simultaneously, a dull, conforming, safe, fenced off whistle-stop. Each having potential as pleasure trove and trap. My feelings ranging from celebratory to confined materialize in my paintings.
In my youth I would spend hours making meandering ballpoint pen drawings with my Dad. He also introduced me to various “underground” artists and illustrators like Frank Frazetta, HR Giger, R. Crumb as well as psychedelic surf art. My grandmother, an amateur painter led me to appreciate the bold colors and shapes of modern painters like Georgia O’Keefe and Paul Gauguin. I studied photography and ceramics before landing on my longest held passion, painting.
I made art without a thought like we all do as children. As an adolescent I became more interested in the visual arts and began to garner some attention for my relative talent. It was my growing interest in combination with the external affirmations that motivated me to take more classes in the arts, which I did throughout high school, and community college.
My introduction to the art world began when I got a job as an artist assistant. Up until then I was sort of waiting to be good, going through the motions of school I was learning but at a casual pace. It was through the assistantship I learned about an intensity and criticality I had not yet encountered. My mentor sparked in me a sense of urgency and helped me recognize that I need to be at the level of my teachers or beyond in order to make my way into a full-time artist. I assisted him with the production of artworks, shipping, and installing shows internationally. I traveled to the historic porcelain capital of the world Jingdezhen, China to assist him during a six-week residency; I had the opportunity to use the studio facilities and make my own work as well. Working on some projects of my own and venturing out into rural Chinese villages with the motley crew of international artists made it feel like my own first residency. I met several full-time artists during that time and I fell in love with the energy and creativity in a newly discovered worldwide art community. Upon returning to California my former employer and I became partners and began an arts coalition in Oceano, CA called The Place on PCH. It began as a multidisciplinary studio, work yard and gallery which quickly evolved into a grassroots artist residency program, which has hosted a diverse range of artists ceramicists, painters, mixed media artists and musicians nationally, and internationally.
After three formative years working as an artist assistant I went on to earning my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from California State University Long Beach. After graduating I began working in the field of art taking on public projects, commissions, and continuing to personal practice. I have a technical curiosity that leads me to a wide range of methodologies within painting and beyond into other media like sculpture, animation and ceramics. I used to see this as a weakness but now I have embraced it as strength. In fact I never want to quit exploring different modes of working instead I let my love for learning new things motivate my direction as an artist.
Graduating from art school, receiving awards and honors, exhibiting and selling my work have all been highlights in my career but among the most satisfying moments come from the working on public projects. They reach a different, larger audience and make a difference in shaping the daily human experience in public spaces. My approach to public art is to consider the physical, cultural and communal context of each individual project. In my regular studio practice I have the control to choose the surface I paint on, the exact dimensions, the lighting etc. In public projects some of that control is removed. The architecture and setting become a set of given parameters. I like to think of the limitations and parameters as a prompt to creatively respond to. I keep in mind the surrounding community, the land, the history, the future and the present moment as I do my best to engage local communities, with artwork reflective of the environment they are in, creating a sense of place and belonging.
Most recently I completed two projects on the campus of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA. First, a triptych mural titled, Generosity adorning the exterior walls of the food processing building number twenty-four on the agricultural end of campus in a newly remodeled dining area called Via Carta near the campus market. The mural speaks to several themes, including recognizing the valuable contributions of farm laborers on the Central Coast and the agricultural bounty of our region, as well as Cal Poly’s student contributions to the field of agriculture.
A year later I returned to the University campus to paint a series of large utility boxes near the Grand Avenue entrance to campus right in front of Scout Coffee, across from the campus dining and adjacent to the Performing Arts Center. The project titled, Sixteen Native Plants celebrates diverse habitats of California and brings closer attention to native plants, their beauty, specificity, harmony, patterns and diversity. On a similar theme I painted a mural dedicated to California Oak trees in Santa Maria, CA at Atkinson Park. Last but not least, the colorful and festive pictorial celebration of Mexican culture, cuisine, and Oceano sand dunes painted on the wall of Chacho’s, the locally famous hole in the wall restaurant on Hwy 1 in Oceano known for their homemade tortillas. I am currently working on a large painting that will be featured in the exhibition, California Landscapes: Then and Now, at Great Park Gallery in Irvine, CA. When the exhibition closes the painting will be installed as a mural in the city of Irvine.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Buy quality art, and pay to see quality live music and performance. FInd out what you like, cultivate your own taste in art. Make an effort to see things in person!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I get to practice being sensitive to life. That is a gift that I am eternally grateful for,

Contact Info:

• Website: https://oscarpearsonart.wixsite.com/studio
• Instagram: @oscarpearson_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oscar.pearson.12
• Youtube: @OSCARPEARSONSTUDIO

Image Credits
Aaron Lambert for the Ribbon Cutting Photo Mark Bryan for the one of me in front of the painted tortillas