The Vivid View of Ken Jarvela

Once you get on a roll with a painting, its like you have free license to be part of the mountains. It’s an odd feeling.

Ken Jarvela is one of our favorite local artists. His work captures the wildest plants, rocks, sky and these are the subjects we love.

He grew up in Bayside, California alongside Humboldt Bay and, today, is one of the region’s premier landscape painters. His ability to capture light with vivid brushstrokes using subtle color palettes is, in our opinion, unparalleled. He loves the challenges of tough subjects including majestic redwoods, mountains with low winter sun, and wild rivers weaving through boulder fields.

We are nature’s chance to see itself.

His path to becoming a landscape painter is captured in a new podcast by the Dirtbag Diaries entitled Backcountry Brushes. Ken’s adventures into art started in 1985 with a winter in the Trinity Alps. Friends helped him pack in all his food, clothes, shelter, and art supplies. With paints at his side, over the next 55 days, Ken learned about survival, sounds, colors, and his relationship to place as he explored the wilderness alone.

My uncle, he’s a real character, he says: ‘Well Kenny, the only difference between you and the Donner Party is you won’t have anyone to eat!’

See more of Ken’s paintings at his Facebook page.

Find his work at the Ericson Fine Art Gallery in Healdsburg, California.