DAN FONTES
MURALIST
PACIFIC MURALS
3871 PIEDMONT AVENUE, #61
OAKLAND, CA 94611
phone: (510) 238-8335
https://www.angelfire.com/biz4/danfontes
danfontes@yahoo.com
Dan Fontes- Born in Oakland in 1958, a third generation Bay Area resident. After earning his bachelors degree from Cal State Hayward in 1981, he went on to hone his mural skills alongside such notable artists as Daniel Galvez and John Wehrle. Simultaneously, Dan has explored watercolor, pen & ink, prismacolor pencils, oil pastels, computer art, printmaking fiber optics and photography. His realist style was influenced by the work of Frederick Church, Dali, Magritte, and Parrish. Dan is best known for the award winning giraffe and zebra murals alongside Oakland's 580 freeway, as well as Oakland's "Lake Merritt Mural" at 27th & Broadway. Dan has participated in over one hundred mural projects. The commission painted for the Bethany Senior Center of the Mission district entitled Salud! (99' x 50')is San Francisco's tallest mural. This work (which took eight months to complete) depicts the residents in various activities in minute photorealist detail. His two most recent projects were the 15 inaugural murals for Oakland's Mayor Jerry Brown and a mini-mural for the "Artship", a floating cultural center docked at Oakland's 9th Avenue wharf. On the subject of his mural art Dan goes on to say that "I have an ongoing interest in Bay Area history. I favor local and personal art over the trendy and fashionable. At the same time I try to gear my work to timeless images. In one way or another my work is about making or drawing attention to 'place'. Some of it is about surprising the viewer, some of it is about leaving a person with a sense of serenity and at other times the paintings can be whimsical or amusing. These newly created places can emphasize historical properties, serve as landmarks or entranceways or any number of things. At best they have taken the surrounding environment (it's character, it's architecture) or perhaps the light and movement of a place into account." I have worked with thousands of children in many schools and taught dozens of workshops through out Northern California as well as in two of Oakland's sister cities in China and Japan. My goal is to have children use professional quality art materials, understand painting techniques and concepts such as brushwork, composition, line, form, perspective and light & shadow. Then the challenge is to have them deal with subject matter and thoughtfully re-present it. By learning some of these basics I feel they can sense a fuller understanding of all artforms, not just painting. Hopefully, art becomes problem solving "way of life" rather than some meaningless abstract notion.
