Elan Vital celebrated the opening of his new museum-like gallery on El Paseo in Palm Desert through the evening of the First Friday in November, part of the First Weekend Palm Desert events extravaganza. This 220-foot-long gallery has a decidedly different feel to it. Its well-lit interior resembles an artist’s museum where important paintings, both beautiful and large, are on display. Creativity, invention, and technology converge in Élan’s world and comprise his signature technique. He creates his own medium, namely paint, by taking a high-tech clear aerospace enamel he discovered on high altitude surveillance jets like the U-2 spy plane and combining it with exotic materials collected from 50 countries. The cornucopia of pigments and finely ground materials he uses are his secret ingredients.
