Conversations with Dylan Seeman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dylan Seeman.

Hi Dylan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
In the spring of 2018 while enlisted in the Navy I lost the love of my life, Tiara Marie Gray, because of medical negligence. (Voice of San Diego did an investigative piece on the circumstances) I pushed the grief away, but misery overtook my soul. Then early in 2019 while working onboard the USS Harpers Ferry, a friend and shipmate, William Nolastname was painting a mural inside the ship. As I watched the flow of brushstroke fly, the color contrast, the shapes—half a seed was planted.
The other half came in 2020 when Billy brought me to an art museum. We talked and walked and came across an abstract piece. He announced what he felt, what he saw, what was fun–and I said it was all nonsense and hippie talk. Sternly he told me to the effect, “Why don’t you let yourself feel something?” I stared more and something happened.
A few months later–right before my 6-month tour in South America–I asked Billy for a list of colors and stuff I would need to get started. After all night working up the courage to paint, sometime around midnight I got a piece of paper and made a little landscape with a moon and a shed in a field of pink and purple flowers. For the first time in roughly four years, I was happy.
I knew once I was out of the military, and had a stable life, I would get back to it. Almost a year and a half later, I finally bought a sketchbook. Almost four years later, not a single day has passed without painting or drawing something.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing in life worth our time is smooth or paved. At one point I would work 10-12 hours in a kitchen–with burn marks or cuts every day, exhausted from standing on my feet the whole time–getting home at 11 pm and setting up the easel. Trying to learn new techniques, practice brushstrokes till 2 or 3 in the morning, and then wake up at 7 and do the whole thing over again. On New Year’s Day 2023, I was hospitalized for three days with blood clots. Something I’m still struggling with. I need medication that causes even a simple cut to bleed for days. Fear isn’t easy to cope with, and bouts of fatigue make everything all more difficult. But in short, we all have problems, struggles, and challenges–it’s part of what it means to be a human. In the end, the challenges have shown me what’s important in life.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Paintings that are nostalgic but new, angry but calm, up close but far away, surrealistic but real. It is an investigation of how to join extreme opposites cohesively. I’m obsessed with the intense contradiction, the seemingly unconnected: we live in a society that likes to make black and white out of ideas and that simply isn’t true. Like the paintbrush; one side is hard and made from trees; the other is soft and from animals. But individually they are useless for painting but together they are everything. So I look for these opposites and when I find them I know ‘Ah I don’t understand enough,’ and use my paintings as a vehicle to broaden my understanding.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Individuality and freedom. I truly love when people embrace themselves and see the differences and uniqueness that others hold and respect that. It is those attributes that make life, society, and work interesting. I’ve got a buddy whose cat loves biting off the buttons of shirts. That cat has Character and I adore that. Or another friend who can’t live without camping for 6 months out of the year, or my abuela’s refusal to learn to drive a car (50+ years). Even my car, when I turn the volume knob 3 out of 5 times, it changes the station—I would never dare take it to the shop—there’s a beauty to that and I hold it close to my heart.

And with freedom, I don’t mean in a colloquial sense. I mean freedom within the spirit of a person. For example, at a small concert, where everyone is just standing around, and one person has that freedom of spirit to go do the thing they want to do and everyone joins in because they realize it is something they can do and also want to.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dylanseeman.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/dylanjamesseeman
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/dylan.seeman.98/