Jim Abuan

Jim Abuan immigrated from the Philippines with his family to central California when he was 8 years old. He began his college education at Merced College, Merced, CA and transferred to Cal State Stanislaus, Turlock, CA to acquire his BFA. After the military he moved to Los Angeles where he earned his MFA in 1976 from Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County, now called Otis College of Art and Design. With a few years of “underground” art exhibits throughout Los Angeles and working in commercial art, he returned to California’s central valley where he taught high school graphic arts, photography and yearbook design until retiring in 2009. He resumed painting two years later with a varied approach, but mainly with figuration to explore non-traditional use of the human form in flat spatial environments.

Source for subject matter come mainly from print publication which, in some paintings, fashion models serve as a point of departure. When needed, he employs an image transfer technique to imbed found imagery into his paintings.

He states, “It’s very hard to do but I’m trying to eliminate what makes the painting appealing. For me, it’s more about what makes it different.” He uses acrylic latex house paint with colors selected from a paint chart, rather than traditional acrylic tube paint.