There are surfers who are artists and artists who are surfers, and the best of both will be on display during “Surf Art: Exploring California’s Coastal Culture,” a collaborative exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art and the California Surf Museum.
The dual exhibition at Oceanside’s two museums has been a while in the making.
“The conversation about a surf art exhibition has been in full force since I came to the museum in 2013,” says Katie Dolgov, the art museum’s director of exhibitions and collections, “but how do you do that? We don’t know surfers that well, but the surf museum does. They made a proposal to us two or three years ago. We thought, let’s merge our powers… and create an incredible surf art show. Thank goodness we were on the same wavelength!”
Jim Kempton, executive director of the California Surf Museum and co-curator of the exhibition, concurs.
“This is something we’ve been thinking about for four or five years,” he says, “but it was hard to find a time to do it. I’ve been collecting art (for the exhibition) for about four or five months. A lot of surfers have become artists. They started as surfer-artists and some have gone on to fine arts, like album covers for recording artists.”
The pieces include paintings, sculptures, resin works, surfboards, murals, graphic design, textiles and more by 30 regional artists. It was difficult to choose which works should be included in the show, Dolgov says.
“It was an open call. We received about 750 submissions from dozens of artists (each could submit up to 20) and we could choose only 33.”
“Surf Art” at the art museum opens Aug. 23 and at the surf museum Sept. 13. Both exhibits run through Feb. 1, 2026. A reception will be held 5-7 p.m. Aug. 23 at the art museum (members free; public $15). A second reception (free) will be held 5-8 p.m. Oct. 3 at the surf museum.
