Sven Atema is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, and ocean enthusiast with a rich history in environmentalism stemming from his youth on the influential New Alchemy Farm and the global marine sciences hub of Woods Hole, where he was surrounded by scientists and many pioneers of the environmental movement.
His wide ranging life includes extensive time in East Africa, the Caribbean, the North Sea, Central America, Amsterdam, and California, learning and practicing art and architectural conservation, interfacing with many artists and museums, designing highly regarded wild landscapes, and spending considerable time in and on the ocean.
Much of Atema’s artwork includes a unique language built from the human and natural world, which hovers between the tragic and humorous, as it explores our relationship with the environment. Whether painting on panel, paper, linen, or casting in bronze, Atema is primarily interested in exploring the flora and fauna of our blue planet as it intersects with human experience and impact. He has been included in exhibitions at the Mills College Art Museum, and SF MoMA Artist’s Gallery in California, Bad Habit Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His work is in the public collections of the City of Berkeley and the Mills College Art Museum, and is currently doing work with WHOI at their ocean innovation lab in the hopes of bringing a bronze aquanaut sculpture to the deep ocean depths.
ATEMA - CV
Education
1991 University of California, Santa Cruz, BFA.
1990 Friends World College, Kenya & Ethiopia
1988 Field Study Talamanca Rain Forest Preserve, Costa Rica
Solo Exhibitions
2023 “No Blue No Green”, Highfield Hall & Gardens, Falmouth, MA
2010 “The Brain is Mostly Water”, Jackson Street Gallery, UHS, San Francisco, CA
2003 “Above and Below Sea Level”, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 “Reshaping the Narrative: California Perspectives” Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
2024 Group show, Bad Habit, Provincetown, MA
2020 “25 years - Double Stack Cat Retrospective”, Open Studio, Cape Cod
2019 “Double Stack Cat Bronze”, Downtown Public Art Installation, Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA
2018 “The Brain is Mostly Water 2”, Open Studio, Cape Cod, MA
2016 Painting featured in “Mr. Robot”, Season 2, Episode #3
2014 “Check Your Phone”, Highfield Hall & Gardens, Falmouth, MA
2011 “Underground”, Le Cabinet des Curieux, Paris, France
2009 Electric Works Gallery Fine Art Press Bookstore, San Francisco, CA
2007 “Submerged”, Meat Space Gallery, New York, NY
2004 “Selected Recent Acquisitions”, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, CA
1999 SF MoMA Artists Gallery, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
1998 Le Cabinet des Curieux, Paris, France
1998 “Unorthodox: An Exhibit of Contemporary Surrealism”, 111 Minna Gallery, SF, CA
Bibliography
2025 Telegraph Berkeley.org, Historical Walking Tour Markers of Telegraph Avenue
