We recently connected with Danielle Eubank and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Danielle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

As a fine artist who creates abstract oil paintings of water, I am fortunate to have been involved in many meaningful projects. One of the most notable is One Artist Five Oceans, in which I sailed and painted all the oceans on the planet. While sailing aboard a recreation of an eighth century Indonesian wooden boat, I painted the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. Aboard a recreation of a sixth century BCE Phoenician boat, I painted the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean. A three-masted barquentine was my conveyance to the High Arctic, where I painted the Arctic Ocean. The Southern Ocean, the ocean that surrounds Antarctica, was a delight to paint and the most unusual. Finally, I am from the Pacific Ocean, and have been painting it for many years.

In 2001, while cycling through southern Spain, I fell off my bike and down a mountain. I was okay, but unable to travel further on my bicycle (one could argue that with a tumble like that, perhaps I shouldn’t have been on my bike in the first place). I convalesced in a fishing village in the north where I sat on the quay each day and painted the water. This was to be the beginning of my water painting series. The first paintings were fairly realistic and included boats and a horizon. They quickly became more and more abstract. This set me up for the sailing projects that started a few years later.

By creating portraits of all the Earth’s oceans, I help show these bodies as individual entities, enabling viewers to closely observe the oceans and encouraging a passion for helping them.

Danielle, 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?

In my 20-year project, One Artist Five Oceans, I sailed and painted every ocean to raise awareness about the state of our oceans and climate change. I chose to paint all the world’s oceans to highlight the importance of equity and community. This project continues as I explore rivers, lakes, reservoirs and other water sources.

I am currently painting some of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States, including the Gowanus Canal (superfund site), NY, and the San Francisco Bay (multiple superfund sites), CA to heighten awareness of the urgency for redress and protection of these waters in our neighborhoods.

Before I started painting water, I painted portraits, abstracted landscapes, and animals. I started working with oil paint as a way of ‘getting my hands dirty.’ My art, before painting, mainly constituted designing interactive interfaces. As one of the world’s first web designers, it was the wild west of interactivity. I began designing interactive products before the world wide web. It was a true art form where we discussed things like, “Should we call it a ‘back button’ or a ‘return button’”? This really was the beginning of interactive multimedia. I always enjoyed interactive art. When people interact with software, art, a story, or any discipline, they are more engaged, learn more, and have more fun. I use this idea in my painting. I create up-close, vibrant, sensuous waterscapes that invite the viewer to dive in, observe and get involved.

I want people to really observe the environment so that they think about it more and hopefully act to help it. I am an environmentalist and also an artist. I think that no matter what my occupation was, I would incorporate ways to help support clean water, air, earth, and the biosphere into my profession. While my art started as a purely artistic pursuit, over time it came together with my passion for helping the natural world. The two ventures joined. I am lucky that they married so successfully. Through my art I explore artistic endeavors and I use it as a vehicle to inspire people to think more about our impact on our planet.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I started painting water while convalescing after falling down a mountain. I have had three different kinds of cancer. Yet I am more inspired than I have ever been and I am creating my best work.

I have an uncommon gene, PALB2, that has generated multiple carcinogenic mutations. Luckily, and with the alacrity of my medical team, these have been caught early each time. Surgeries and chemotherapies are an enormous time expense. Months of healing and hours every week in doctors’ offices make me appreciate my time in the studio even more.

While painting I am building, creating, improving. I work iteratively, in series. With each painting I am refining something from the previous image, or experimenting, trying something new. I am immersed in the artwork in front of me, and simultaneously excited for the next. It is subconscious, but I think that this iterative approach keeps me motivated by the work at hand and keeps me optimistic about the next. I don’t have patience for self-pity. When defeatism inevitably tries to edge its way in, I remind myself how lucky I am to be here. Ironically my medical issues are both a cause for self-pity and a remedy.

Developing my next artwork keeps me focused on the next piece, which will always be better.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Creativity is vastly misunderstood. It is problem solving. Finding solutions. Seeing things in a fresh way. There is no ‘muse’ and a black beret does not make someone an artist (although berets are quite fetching). I tire of the ‘artiste’ tropes wheeled out unthinkingly. I am certain that lawyers, schoolteachers and nurses are equally fatigued with the way their professions are reduced to formulaic clichés in films.

Everyone that has ever found a solution to a problem is creative. There is no wizard in Oz. Only a man behind a curtain. Creatives aren’t magicians and their creations don’t emanate from the tip of a wand. I want to dispel any notion that creatives have some kind of gift that others don’t possess. Anyone can create well. An epiphany!

Does that mean that I–who has never played the piano–could create the next great classical opus? Of course not. Nor does it mean that someone chosen from a crowd could drive the discipline of painting forward like Picasso. What it does mean, is that anyone who works to solve problems is creative, whether they are mathematicians, physicists, street cleaners, day care workers, or any other vocation.

For artists this means combining hard work and the humility to come up with bad ideas. Bad idea after bad idea followed by humble technical skill until they eventually get it right. Even then, they won’t be happy with the result, so they keep at it until they are satisfied. The drive to make something better is the key. If I had my way, I would create a new word for the ‘unceasing compulsion to improve an idea or object’. ‘Create’ is weak and means too many different things. There is creativity, or problem solving, and then there is that other thing (insert new word here). Everyone is creative and can embrace the liberation that that begets.

Few have the determination keep innovating. Again, this applies to any discipline. If someone is passionate about their interest and has the resolve to push it forward, then they are the categorical creative. Wear your beret with pride.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.danielleeubankart.com/
• Instagram: @EubankArt
• Facebook: @EubankArt
• Linkedin: danielleeubank
• Twitter: N/A
• Youtube: @eubankart
• Yelp: N/A
• Soundcloud: N/A
• Other: Bluesky: @eubankart.bsky.social

Image Credits

Photo of Danielle, credit: Fletcher Beasley
All artwork and photos of artwork, credit: Danielle Eubank.
Danielle Eubank • Alameda Island II • Oil on linen • 50×42 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Southern Ocean XIII • Oil on linen • 42×60 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Southern Ocean X • Oil on linen • 42×50 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Southern Ocean XVII • Oil on linen • 42×60 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Petaluma River II • Oil on linen • 36×50 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Gowanus Canal III • Oil on linen • 60×42 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Santa Cruz Island III • Oil on linen • 40×30 inches;
Danielle Eubank • Arctic XI • Oil on linen • 60×72 inches;