profile

Sven Atema was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan yet grew up on Cape Cod, in the town of Woods Hole. A love of the ocean was natural, surrounded on three sides by water and a string of small islands. Atema currently lives in Berkeley, California. He graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz with a BFA, having done extensive study in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The ocean is still a pivotal point of reference in Atema’s paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. And the close scrutiny of nature and our relationship to it is a thread that connects nearly all of his work. There are many characters and themes that exemplify this unique work such as evaporation, primates, bowls of water, tentacles, climate change, jellyships and the number 3.

Atema’s work can be seen in many private collections around the country and in Europe, the mills college art museum, and 22 feet under the ocean sitting on a rock.