Hello

I'm Nikhil Dev, a contemporary landscape painter exploring the intersection of systems design and the American West. Currently living and practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Artist Statement

My practice explores form, space, and color through the lens of a designer.

Having relocated from India to California a decade ago, my work is driven by a subconscious need to mentally map and deconstruct this adopted landscape. With a professional background in systems design, I approach my subjects as arrangements of surfaces, patterns, and relationships rather than literal representations.

“California Chroma” is a landscape-focused series that deconstructs the American West into systems of color, light, and structure. From the expansive scale of the Carrizo Plain to the intimate, rhythmic forms of the trees in Cupertino, each painting studies how saturation and contrast generate depth in an environment that once felt foreign and is now deeply familiar.

Working with a high-chroma palette of vibrant purples, indigo shadows, and electric greens, I use color vibration to define spatial planes. My work is influenced by the graphic clarity of Jonas Wood and the atmospheric light of David Hockney, emphasizing deliberate mark-making and compositional logic. Ultimately, these pieces translate a lived environment into a cohesive, systemic visual language.