High Artist Spotlight: Damon Reinagle

Damon Reinagle is a fine artist who resides in Southern California. His latest body of work consists of endangered wild life melting or disintegrating into abstracted backgrounds. In particular, Tigers are of special interest due to their patterning and strong color contrast. Damon fears that these majestic beasts will eventually dissolve away altogether. More and more, land and marine animals suffer daily from the effects of deforestation and poaching, illegal fishing and bleaching of ocean reefs all over the globe. Damon’s representations of animal life melting, disintegrating and evaporating into pattern and color are his artistic focus currently. Damon begins each piece with colors dumped onto the blank canvas and spread around, dragged and manipulated. By brushing, dragging and spraying the paint layers he creates a flowing, patterned background upon which his animals can subtly merge into.
We recently caught up with Damon after High Art 2023 to learn more about his most recent inspirations:

Why do you do what you do?

My work has been referred to as illustrative.

What art/artist do you most identify with?

Yoshitaka Amano, the original artist contributing to the Final Fantasy series.

What themes do you pursue the most?

Relationships, human to human, human to nature, human to the universe.

What role does an artist have in society?

Artists are the storytellers, whether opening a dialog for a new concept or reflecting upon past events, always pushing the boundaries of their mediums.

What is your artistic outlook on life?

Art should be like life, filled with love, joy, sadness, fear, anger, and discovery.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

You should have explored all the avenues of art that you had an interest in and not worried about being judged or not fitting in.

Do you listen to music while you are creating? If yes, share the song and artist that you listen to while creating art.

Yes, anything that is in the blues category. Specifically, Eric Clapton.

What's the best thing about being an artist?

The journey into a free mind space where creativity flows and you're only limited by your imagination.

What is your dream project?

My dream project is to do a mural with my Grandson.

Support Damon by shopping his collection here.