Wolfgang Bloch [artist]

By: Editor | August 18, 2009 | Ten by Ten

After enjoying a decade of well-noted commercial success as an art director and illustrator, Wolfgang Bloch, dedicated himself to his first love: painting. Bloch’s art reveals much about the man who creates it. Over the past decade, Bloch’s work has been exhibited in the pages of major international publications and on the walls of galleries and museums across the globe. Chronicle Books recently published Wolfgang’s first book titled Wolfgang Bloch: The Colors of Coincidence. Bloch lives with his wife and two children in Laguna Beach, Calif.

Walk us through your most colorful childhood memory. 
Camping with friends at the age of 12 on deserted beaches in Ecuador. My father would drop us off with food and supplies, and come back to pick us up a days later. I’ve never felt so free in my life. 

What is the strangest number you have programmed into your phone? 
Jorge, the taxi driver at Liberia airport in Cost Rica. 

Describe your closest brush with death. 
With a friend, at the age of 10. We were pushing small boulders off of a cliff to watch them bounce down the hill. All of the sudden, the ground underneath me broke off the hill, and I found myself in the middle of a landslide. I tumbled down 30 or 40 yards and luckily landed in a ditch while the boulders and large rocks bounced over me. I ended up only being halfway covered by dirt and small rocks. I clearly remember looking up the hill after the dust had settled and seeing my friend’s face of horror and relief when he saw that I was OK. 

If you could choose any five people, dead or alive, to have dinner with, who would they be and why? 
Frank Lloyd Wright: I think his work is just timeless; he was way ahead of his time, and I would love to see what he could come up with using today’s technology.
Barack Obama: I have never been moved or seized by a speaker (like I have by him).
Christiana Amanpour: I would love to hear her stories from all her experiences worldwide as a journalist.
Richard Serra: His minimalist sculptures have always fascinated me. The enormity of the self-supported installations, the material used and how graceful they look from afar as opposed to how heavy they look when right in front.
Robert Rauschenberg: I could look at his paintings or so called “combines” for hours. I think they are amazing in so many levels, especially that they look contemporary even though they were done 50 years ago. 

What do you consider your greatest failure? 
To not have taught my kids Spanish. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
To be able create a painting that somebody is so moved by that they must have it; it’s like watching someone fall in love with an object. 

What is your most cherished possession and why? 
My wedding band and what it represents. 

How will you spend this evening? 
Watching the Lakers play, sitting next to my son. 

Describe a vivid or recurring dream you’ve had?
I used to dream that I was floating in the middle of the ocean without any land in sight. 

How would you define love?  
Acceptance, honesty and freedom.

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