“Sunset Over Steamer Lane”

Santa Cruz is chock-full of great surfers. It’s also the home of many great artists. It’s no surprise that, in turn, we’ve got a ton of phenomenal surfers who also happen to be phenomenal artists as well. Spending so much time in the splendor of nature while wrangling beautifully-shaped waves on which paint their unique lines, Santa Cruz-born surfer-artists such as Eugene Dovydaitis are rarely in need for inspiration for their artistic creations.

All it takes is one serene vision from inside a perfect tube or a glance towards the horizon as the orange sun melts into the Pacific Ocean to get creatives such as Dovydaitis fired-up to put the paint on their brush and go to town on their next masterpiece. Just take his latest painting, “Sunset Over Steamer Lane”, for example, which depicts a molten sunset lighting up a cloudy Fall day framed by perfect peeling waves at the Lane.

This piece takes two regular sights of Autumn in Santa Cruz, spectacular sunsets and endless swells wrapping in the Monterey Bay, and combines them in a surreal and powerful image that pays homage to the lovely place we call home. It’s a sublime and dream-like portrayal of our familiar coastline that somehow makes it even more blissful and ephemeral than it already is. Over his long career, Dovydaitis has produced tons of paintings just like this that hang like framed treasure in many local surfer’s homes.

Just like with his art, in the water Dovydaitis brings an eye-pleasing style to his approach to riding waves, and can be regularly found placing masterful strokes on liquid canvases all over the West Side. I was fortunate to get the story straight-from-the-horses mouth regarding “Sunset Over Steamer Lane”, as well as some insight into his life as a local surfer/artist

I guess it was Art Class with Katey Collier Harper at Santa Cruz High when I first decided to become a painter. She created an environment where I was always welcome to come in and work on my paintings (even if she knew I was probably supposed to be in another class).  Like most people in Santa Cruz, I did a couple years at Cabrillo College and then, a few years later, The San Francisco Academy of Art. couple years at Cabrillo College and then, a few years later, The San Francisco Academy of Art

Like most kids growing up in Santa Cruz, was obsessed with surfing. Kevin Reed, Vince Collier, Charlie Heittman, Richard Schmidt…these were my idols when I was a grom! They were like superheroes to me.

If I wasn’t painting, I was surfing.

But as a lot of people know, growing up in this “surfer’s paradise” has a dark side. Surf all day and party all night became a way of life for many of us. A growing number of my contemporaries are no longer with us, but thankfully, I’m celebrating 16 years clean and sober this month! Nowadays, a surfing is my drug of choice.

This was a recent commission done for my buddy Drew Reid, entitled “Sunset Over Steamer Lane”, 3’x6’, house paint on canvas. It was inspired by the kind of sunsets we typically get in the fall. On my paintings, like this one, I begin with a dark blue-ish gray, sometimes even black, canvas, and gradually bring the image out by working from dark to light. Then, I add layers upon layers of brushstrokes without covering up too much of the darker colors that came before.

When I’m painting something like this, I’m definitely listening to a lotta Jazz. Miles Davis and Django Reinhardt inspire me to get creative. The main feeling evoked while working on this piece was gratitude, for being born and raised in this corner of the world. What an incredible fluke of events and ridiculously good luck.

Follow Dovydaitis on Instagram for more! @eugenedovy