About

In these times artist cannot be placed into convenient
boxes that describe who or what they are as artists.
At their Core they are inspired, imaginative and dedicated to the vision they create.

Donald Kolberg graduated with a Fine Arts Degree from California State University, Los Angeles.He taught at the Los Angeles School of Art and co-founded Art Core, an organization dedicated to the open dialogue and display of the work of emerging artists. He continued his Master studies at Otis Art Institute.
While at Otis Art Institute his teacher and main influence was internationally recognized painter Arnold Mesches. Through his guidance Donald learned the value of depth, texture and form in images and surface. He incorporated this into his concept of Life Forms, the portrayal of the human figure as a landscape of life and a celebration of form.
After finishing his academic studies, Donald began his travels back and forth across the United States exhibiting his paintings and sculpture works. His work as an independent television producer led him to create “Periscope Up”, a 10 part television series for PBS in Pennsylvania. Donald continues to explore art styles and is currently working in sculpture using enameled steel mesh to expand on his concept of Life Forms.
“In creating Wiremesh Sculpture I use steel screen. I usually work from a model, form by hand, bend and manipulate the screen in relation to the tension created by the pose. The intricacies of the push and pull of the surface of the form caused by the bodies’ muscles is what I’m after. And as with any sculpture, the resulting relationship to light and shadow integrate with the final piece.”

His painting has been concerned with the abstract reorganization of landscapes into fields of color and texture that portray the feeling of the elements of the environment more than depicting the actual scenes.
Additional paintings and works on paper can be seen on his website www.donaldkolberg.com

I look for an ease and harmony in my wire mesh sculpture, what Matisse called “arabesque”. The interaction of the piece with its environment, including in most cases, the cast shadow, allows me to capture the unique quality of the whole subject. The character of the steel mesh diffuses the importance of mass so that I can emphasis the inner muscular tension, sometimes through a distortion of the figure itself.

By rejecting volume in the steel mesh and steel ribbon sculptures and looking for a more kinetic rhythm I can explore what Naum Gabo searched for in the basic forms of our perceptions of real time. Even the most perceptually static of my pieces explores what Degas explored in painting, the problems of form and movement.

My use of recycled glass allows for the creation of a dynamic relationship between a rarely noticed common element in our life, glass, and the development of organic pieces of art. Each time I create a sculpture I reduce the size of the original ecological footprint. And by using the reclaimed material from a utilitarian object in my artwork, I am able to subtract it from the cycle of consumption that leads to a negative environmental equation. I believe my recycled glass sculptures add to the artistic sensibility of our lives without subtracting resources from the earth.

From gesture drawings to acrylic canvas, I have rendered the feeling, texture and tension of life in figurative and abstract arenas. Besides the use of acrylics and charcoal, the non-traditional medium of spray paint has connected the gesture to traditional subjects creating a contemporary, modernistic form.

Painting has always been a part of my artwork. From gesture drawings to abstract landscapes in oil, spray paint and acrylics, I have tried to render the feeling, texture and tension of life. I have used traditional and non-traditional mediums to explore the relationships and perceptions that fill our lives.