Wolfgang Bloch was born and raised in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he first discovered surfing and, in the process, his love for the ocean and the secluded Ecuadorian coastline.

Bloch's paintings communicate both the primal power and the hypnotic beauty of the sea. The subtlety in his compositions captures an essence of both calmness and complexity. His subdued palette and his thoughtful use of unexpected and often discarded materials reflect much about the artist himself; unassuming, honest, complicated and reserved. Pacifico is a brave departure from form for Wolfgang Bloch, an artist known best for his moving and recognizable contemporary seascapes. This new series signals not only a seachange in the established subject matter of Bloch’s body of work, but also the simultaneous surfacing of a deep well of uncharted emotions from this typically guarded and private artist. Arising from a characteristically subdued palate of deep colors, the works in Pacifico are as deliberate and as expressive as always, but for the first time they take viewers beneath Bloch’s unmistakable surfaces that are at once beautiful and foreboding. There’s serious weight to each of these new works, but each also offers a promise of light. To experience these works is to dive to the depths of the ocean and to the depths of life’s most challenging passages.