The family: Nancy, Cricket, Emma, Polo, Angel, Jolie, Stella and Eric
[and not shown in photo is Toby]
Eric Hart Samuelson
Eric Hart Samuelson is a visual artist, poet, and graphic designer based in La Quinta, California. He comes from a family legacy rich in creativity, with inspiration derived from his maternal great grandfather, acclaimed illustrator and painter Franck Taylor Bowers. Samuelson received his B.A. in English from the University of Virginia where he won first prizes for poetry from the Virginia Literary Review and the Langston Hughes Literary Society. A successful career as a creative director, art director, and graphic designer soon followed, first at premier advertising agencies J. Walter Thompson and Foot Cone & Belding; later for an innovative internet start-up in San Francisco. In 1997, Samuelson founded Left Coast Group, which subsequently evolved into Samuelson Creative, an Addy Award-winning advertising and design business serving clients in multiple industries.
In 2012, Samuelson established One Mind Communications, a socially conscious platform from which to expand his artistic vision and ability, aligning it with his deeply spiritual philosophy of “oneness” and that all things are interrelated. The artist cites the aesthetic/functional art of primitive cultures, as well as his background growing up in the 1960s and 1970s in Colombia, El Salvador, and Argentina as some of his earliest influences. In 1974, his father, an oil executive, was kidnapped in Argentina, held for ransom and later released. Despite this life changing experience, Samuelson holds deep admiration and compassion for a Latin American culture that, for better or for worse, “lives passionately from the soul and the heart.”
Samuelson’s art often explores non-dualistic themes, striving to abolish the separation between opposite attributes like good and bad, and right and wrong. His work encompasses paint on canvas, mixed media, installations and photography. Of particular interest to the artist is deconstructing images to create and reveal unforeseen or fresh insights.
Says Samuelson: “I want to be a spark that ignites and challenges people’s sensibilities and imaginations, but I don’t want to ‘direct’ them. My hope is that my work will encourage them to look at something from a new perspective.”