Featured Artist: Central Coast painter Dan Berkeland

Central Coast artist, Dan Berkeland, titled one of his earliest paintings dalla finestra della cucina which in Italian means from the kitchen window. It was a landscape view across the grape and olive tree terraced Valdarno outside of Florence, Italy – the same view Dan studied day in and day out while chopping onions and stirring risotto in the kitchen of a Tuscan guesthouse.  Only after a morning visit to the local farmer, an espresso and a chat with the town butcher, and after preparing and serving a full Tuscan lunch was he able to retreat to an old chapel that served as his studio and hone the craft of oil painting that he is known for today.  Later in the afternoon, he’d return to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

“It was a full service job.  Groups from around the world would stay with us for a week or two at a time.  We’d feed them during the day, stay up late with wine and guitars around the fire at night, and inevitably a bunch of them would want to see what I was working on in the chapel.  Eventually I started selling paintings and then showing in galleries and now, today, it’s pretty much become my career.  But I would never have reached this point with my art if I hadn’t simultaneously paid my dues sweating away in that little kitchen for all those years.”

Today Dan’s paintings are collected worldwide.  On the Central Coast, Dan’s work is currently exhibited at the Vault Gallery in Cambria and at Fiona Bleu in Morro Bay.  He has also exhibited in galleries in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Florence, Italy.

Upon graduating from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1996 with a degree in architecture, Dan set off for Europe with little more than a six-string on his back and an open mind about the future.  In Reggello, Italy, he found work at Casa Cares, a guesthouse catering to the needs of traveling groups from around the world.  He began as a farmer and moved quickly to the kitchen where he worked seasonally until 2005 while he developed his paintings.  His travels introduced him to landscapes, people, and kitchens from Greece and Turkey up to the Scandinavian north and across the globe to Southeast Asia.  Though his most formal training is Tuscan, Dan’s fascination with foods has no borders.

“I love the dill and the citrus of the Greek diet and its’ heavy reliance on leafy greens and the sea.  I love that a standard Thai recipe could have 20 unique ingredients and that a classic Italian recipe may have only three.  I really get into the fishy comfort foods that start showing up on a Swedish table around Christmas.”

Now Dan brings his experience to Sustenance Studio.  Where food and art and music come together seamlessly – as they were meant to.

“When I paint, I’m always thinking and talking about food, and then when I cook, I become consumed with some little thing I’m trying to work out in a painting.  They feed off of each other – so to speak.  I really feel like I thrive in this sort of setting.”

Join Dan Berkeland at Sustenance, located at 2033 Santa Barbara Street in San Luis Obispo, to eat his food, view his art, learn from his insights and to offer him yours!

Call Seamus at 805.234.1691 for more information.