Celebrating Bowie: My Piece in the Santa Monica Art Museum Exhibition

My Mixed Media Piece at The Santa Monica Art Museum

I still catch my breath recalling the moment I learned that my mixed-media piece, Ziggy and my Favorite Extraterrestrials, had been accepted into A Day with David Bowie—an exhibition now extended through September 28 at the Santa Monica Art Museum. It’s an honor that feels like a shimmering echo of the very spirit that inspired the work.

At the heart of the exhibition is a serene, almost meditative showcase of rarely seen black-and-white photographs by Austrian photographer Christine de Grancy, capturing David Bowie’s 1994 visit to the Art Brut Center in Gugging. These images are not of the glam-era Bowie or the theatrical alien rock star. They show something quieter and more intimate: Bowie seated on a lawn, cigarette in hand, enveloped in dusk, deeply present and reflective. This is the Bowie who leans in close, who listens, who allows himself to be moved by the work of others. That quiet openness is what makes the setting so soulful—and what makes this exhibition feel so personal.

My piece, “Ziggy and My Favorite Extraterrestrials,” riffs on the mythology of Bowie’s iconic character but pushes beyond the Ziggy archetype into a kind of cosmic language—part mythology, part inner theater. It’s about transformation, reinvention, and letting the strange and beautiful lead the way. To have that work hanging within an exhibit that so thoughtfully honors Bowie’s own openness to the outsider, the uncanny, and the deeply human is more than just a professional milestone—it’s a kind of artistic alignment.

Originally scheduled for a shorter run, the show has now been extended—twice—into late September. I’m beyond grateful that my work gets to be part of this moment, part of this conversation, and part of the quiet magic this show seems to offer.

When you visit, you’ll encounter a Bowie that feels deeply human—no glitter, no stadiums—just a man in black and white, captured by a sensitive lens. The layout of the space breathes, allowing the photographs—and any work displayed alongside them—to land with clarity. There’s also a beautifully curated companion exhibition, Spectacle, featuring 60 large-scale photographs from National Geographic, running concurrently and also extended through September. It’s a show that invites contemplation and also rewards curiosity.

The Santa Monica Art Museum is open Wednesday through Friday, 12–8 p.m., and weekends from 10 a.m.–8 p.m. It’s wheelchair accessible, and they also offer private visits, making it an inviting experience for all kinds of visitors.

I hope you’ll make time to see it. And if you do stop by, I hope you find a little piece of stardust—Bowie’s or mine—that stays with you.

Art, Color and More Art

How I design spaces with color as probably has a lot to do with my background as an artist. Conversely, I've noticed these different design projects for clients, the spaces themselves; creep back into my art work. Fascination with architectural form fuels the subject matter of my paintings, while the particular way I try to enhance environments comes from the way I understand spatial composition, color and proportion learned from studying painting.

One example is the home of one of my clients in Santa Monica. It's a beautiful contemporary three-story building with open space that lets light spill in from the third floor all the way to the first. As you look up the upper ceiling forms a sweeping curve and is clad with a warm tongue and groove wood. Sailing down back to the ground floor is a large flue that extracts the smoke from the fireplace. The upper two floors look onto the main living area with half walls that not only let the natural light everywhere but give the wonderful feeling of expansiveness; the same way you feel the open sky when you lean over the side of a ship. 

I tried to enhance these qualities with color. Two elements in particular that nagged at me were the wonderful orange tone of the vaulted ceiling wasn't relating to anything of the same color family. It had no one to "speak" to. For the flue, I designed a custom color metallic copper paint. Instead of apologizing for itself when it was painted the same hue as the wall in back of it, it is now a proud feature in the room.

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Back to painting, some of the feelings I try convey in my painting are the moments that you feel standing in a new space before you become "used to it". The time when you walk up a staircase for the first time with the anticipation of what you'll find at the top of the landing.  

There was a a particular place on the second floor that struck me enough to do a painting. It was a place where all the different planes, some enhanced by different colors, converged. The contrast of the zig zagging perpendicular lines, the wood ceiling curving to make an arch on the tallest wall gave me a serene feeling mixed with exhilaration, I wanted to capture it in a painting.

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