Malcolm Tuffnell

Born in Santa Barbara, California, I have been a captive of the magic of ballet from a young age, and fascinated by skies and clouds. Both of these themes dominate my work.
My ballet work evokes the fantasy world of the ballet stage, through my own poetic
interpretations of the great ballets, such as the Nutcracker, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, and
Giselle. The works are not meant to literally depict dancers and the ballet from a realist
perspective, a la Degas, but rather from an imaginary viewpoint, as if one were in a
romantic landscape of the mind, populated by swan ballerinas, clowns, and butterflies.
In these densely painted works, layers of opaque paint are overlaid with other layers of transparent paint or glazes, in the manner of the Old Masters, creating a dense inner glow, a poetic atmosphere that communicates to the viewer the emotion of the dance.

On the landscape:
In my landscapes I enter a state of quiet meditation upon the light
and clouds, and hope that they have the same effect on the viewer. I try to recreate from memory the emotional state that I experienced when in a particular place and at a particular time of day, especially late afternoon or sunset, a time of reflection when I think upon the
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I attended the University of California, Santa Barbara and studied with noted teacher Gary Brown; while going to school there I traveled to Europe, where I was
inspired to a life as an artist.
He attended the prestigious School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, graduating with honors. At the School I won the Liquitex Fine Arts Materials Award in 1987.

I have shown in many galleries in California and Massachusetts, including Founder’s Room, Granada Theater, Santa Barbara; Tah Gallery, Pasadena; Visions Gallery, Morro Bay; Gallery 333, North Falmouth, MA; the Orlando Gallery, Los Angeles; Spectrum Gallery, Sacramento; Goldfield Galleries, Los Angeles; Galerie at Newport Beach; and Art Brut, Los Alamos. He is a longtime exhibiting member of the Santa Barbara Art Association. In 2012 his ballet-themed work was selected to be exhibited at the prestigious Thousand Oaks Center for the Performing Arts.