Jaren Dahlstrom is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist based in California, USA. For the past 20+ years he has been working on his “abstract reality” series of paintings. These surrealistic fractured light paintings are based on the concept of how reflections create abstracted images.

This fusion of light creates surprising contrasts and intense colors, while often producing confused lines and fantastical distorted outlines, contrasted with the geometric shapes and creating a style of painting that seems somehow familiar yet new.

Jaren was born in San Francisco, California in 1945 and has been drawing and painting since he was a child. He has a AA design in fine art, from Contra Costa College and attended Art Center College of Design, California College of Arts and Crafts, and Cal State University Hayward. Having grown up near San Francisco Bay, Jaren has always been fascinated by reflections, and how light plays on water.

Often, Jaren will use his computer to distort, and manipulate the reflective photos he takes, making them even more abstract. The resulting images are the basis for his paintings. In the past several years, he began introducing geometric shapes to these computer-generated images - sometimes creating 20 or more images before being satisfied with the result. Jaren then makes a digital print, which he uses to produce the finished painting.

Jaren’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions and his work is in collections regionally, nationally and in Europe. His work is also included the permanent collection of the New York Folk Art Museum, in New York City, NY.