Myra Eastman is a narrative, mostly figurative painter living in Santa Cruz, CA. She is the 2018/19 recipient of the Santa Cruz County Rydell Fellowship. Her solo and group exhibitions include the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Museum Educado Carrillo, and Monterey Peninsula College. She was invited to the Santo Foundation’s 2019 10th Anniversary Invitational Exhibition, the Painting Center in NYC and most recently a two person show at the Gearbox Gallery in Oakland, CA. Her work is included in the Catamaran Literary Reader, American Art Collector and Studio Visit. She is showing art from two series.

 

The Voting Series is a body of work narrates the collective awakening after the vote of 2008. "These paintings are intentionally small, seeking an intimate connection with the viewer. To see the detail you must come up close. Using gouache paint gives the paintings a graphic and chalky texture, intentionally highlighting the illustrative quality of the subject matter."

 

The second set of paintings is from Family Portraits. “This series of family portraits were inspired by old black and white slides that were recently discovered and digitized. This work was painted with acrylics on thrift store frames with surfaces ranging from glass, masonite, cardboard to canvas. The painted decorative frames are crucial to the paintings as they are conceived as symbolic altars to the figures. They seek to celebrate the figures by containing them with bright colors, patterns and repetition."