Sebastien Pridmore: American Canyon’s renowned muralist draws inspiration – and pigments – from the natural world
Two paintings destined for Ecology Center fundraiser
Sebastien Pridmore remembers feeling called to pursue art from a young age. As his grade school classmates listened intently to their teacher’s instruction, Pridmore was enraptured in his own world, drawing pictures on the worksheets at his desk.
Originally from Switzerland, Pridmore moved to American Canyon two years ago, where he currently resides with his wife. He specializes in mural painting and painting on canvas. He is also writing a book recounting his path as an artist over the last 20 years.
In his artwork, Pridmore draws inspiration from the environment and natural world. Historical and contemporary culture also inform what he creates. He frequently incorporates natural elements like stones, rocks, food and even trash, by grinding them up and turning them into pigments that he then uses as paints.
“When you grind your own pigments, you don’t have the same colors each time,” he said. “You can do a lot more with natural pigments and can create more unique art.”
His journey creating culinary art using pigments derived from food has led to exciting collaborations, including one with Michelin-starred chef Anton Mosimann, who has cooked for prominent figures, including U.S. presidents and generations of the British royal family.
After discovering Pridmore’s work, Mosimann invited him to exhibit 20 paintings at the Mosimann Collection, a museum exhibition featuring art created with natural food pigments at César Ritz Colleges in Le Bouveret, Switzerland.
On opening night of the exhibition, Mosimann cooked for VIP guests while Pridmore painted the dish live using only pigments from food ingredients.
Following this collaboration, one of Pridmore’s portraits continues to be on display at César Ritz Colleges, and another is featured at Mosimann’s private dining club in London.
Pridmore said when he is painting murals or on canvas, intuition and logic are his guiding forces.
Speaking about his process he said, “You know you’ve done good as an artist when you yourself get disturbed by the art you create.”
Since moving to Napa County, Pridmore has produced two murals for the community. Fresque à Napa at Alta Heights Elementary School was created in celebration of the school’s 75th anniversary. The mural is a tribute to a prominent oak tree at the school and the creatures that frequent it.
His mural at the Napa Valley Community Foundation was created in celebration of the foundation’s 30th anniversary and is meant to pay tribute to the land and the people of Napa County. The images are of nature in the local environment, and the children depicted were painted using local soil and charcoal from the remains of past wildfires.
The largest mural Pridmore has ever created was in collaboration with Franck Bouroullec, a French artist and performer, and Pridmore’s longtime idol turned mentor.
Together, the two created an approximately 60-foot-high by 18-foot-wide mural situated along the side of a building in Vevey, Switzerland, which pays tribute to actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.
The mural took both artists 18 days to complete and highlights Pridmore’s ability to work on a large scale, incorporating historically significant and culturally relevant concepts into contemporary art.
Pridmore gives credit to Bouroullec for introducing him to a method of vertically mapping out paintings that was once used by Leonardo da Vinci. For most of his career leading up to the collaboration with Bouroullec, Pridmore’s primary painting method was freestyling. Afterward, he evolved away from it.
Currently, Pridmore is working on two landscape paintings that will be auctioned at a fundraiser to support the Napa Valley Ecology Center in American Canyon on Sept. 6. To paint both, he is using natural pigments from the region.
He is also in the final stages of completing a book that details his career as an artist, the work he has produced and his journey creating art using natural materials and pigments. In the book, he shares his methods, techniques, accomplishments and recipes, and encourages readers to embrace a more ecological approach to making art.
He hopes to inspire artists to think outside the box and use more than paint purchased at a crafts store to produce artwork.
“I want to bring back the old way of painting,” he said. “With all this technical progress, we’re losing the basis of art — soon we may end up with artists who don’t even know how to hold a pen.”
