90 Ball Painting

Todd Jacobsen is an abstract/contemporary artist who lives in Laguna Beach, CA. A native of Washington State, his colorful and graphic paintings pay homage to his years at University of Washington. At UW his studied graphic and industrial design as well as fine arts. He was graced to studying under some of the best teachers of their craft while there. Norm Taylor and John Young, both well-known artist/professors help mold Todd’s young creative mind. In years after school, Todd worked for and around the LA interior design scene. Working for Roy McMakin of Domestic furniture and David Gulassa of Gulassa Co. to hone his skills. In 1996, Todd went out on his own and started UTILITY, a full-service design agency that had its focus on retail environment and product design. All along, Todd was painting, working towards what today is his signature style. Todd’s pieces are bold and colorful with a hint of sexual masculinity that is unmistakable. He paints with a glossy black enamel paint that is counterbalanced by colorful soft pastel chalk. These two mediums applied to rough wood canvasses make for a very dimensional and emotional vision. “The pieces need to be more than color, they need to be inspected and touched to get the sense of texture that is subtle but implied”, says the artist. Seattle Children’s Cancer research center and many other private collectors have purchased his pieces over his 35-year career, and he has been featured in the Seattle Times, Pacific Northwest magazine. After living in Seattle for many decades, Todd made the move to Laguna Beach to live close to the beach where he finds time to surf and paint every day. His paintings are typically created on wood canvases and he uses enamel and acrylic paint, soft pastel chalk, and then topcoats them in polyurethane.