Meet the artist
A Life in Design
Fifty years at the wall, the ceiling and the drawing board. Eduard does not really make paintings. He makes rooms that people stop in the doorway of.
In his own words
Create beauty out of ashes.
My purpose and life commitment to “create beauty out of ashes” , for that’s where my breaking out into world with no limits started. Creating my first room design with moving boxes into our first house we rented. Bought used furniture first to complete my vision and design for our family home.
That confidence gave me the idea to redesign my Glendora Highschool gymnasium to paint underground rockstar Frank Zappa’s 15ft. High face as executed by moonlight only in 3 hours…LA Times front page dubbed me as The Phantom Artist, and the highschool kept the black on white mural for 7 years.
It put me on the map as a true artist, and success soon followed with my outdoor Flourescent watercolor advertising, Pacific West Design
Eduard Franz Rijborz
Who is the artist
Fifty years spent inside other people's rooms.
Eduard Franz Rijborz has spent 50 years creating art, interiors, murals, and ceilings that most artists only dream about. His work spans celebrity residences, award-winning restaurants, and landmark commercial spaces, including Celine Dion's family home, Holly Madison's Las Vegas and Hollywood residences, the VIP Lounge of the Marriott Hotel in Long Beach, and Michael Jackson's Las Vegas Thriller Villa.
Darya Persian Cuisine at South Coast Plaza, where Eduard handled all interior marbling, has been voted the best Persian restaurant in California. Mangia Bene Cucina has trusted his murals and Italian wall finishes for 25 consecutive years. Described as one of the best artisans in the world, Eduard now channels that rare depth of experience into training programs designed to help passionate artists and designers build careers of their own, guided by someone who has actually lived one.
The conversation starts with the room, not the brush.How every project begins
How he works
He looks at the light before he looks at the wall.
A room tells him what it needs before the client does. Which direction the windows face and what that does to a palette by four in the afternoon. Where the eye lands walking in. Which wall is doing too much work and which is empty because nothing has ever been the right size for it. Only then does the question of what to paint come up.
Because he finishes surfaces as well as painting on them, the decisions stay in one pair of hands. The plaster behind a piece, the frame around it, the height it hangs at and the light that reaches it are one problem, and clients who come for a single wall regularly end up commissioning the rest of the house. Eduard also designs interiors outright and drafts the drawings for decorative and architectural work.
For years he lived and showed in Laguna Beach, where his own gallery held the paintings, plaster studies and roomscapes clients came to see in person. The studio has moved to Ridgecrest. The way of working has not: art still travels to the client, and the door still opens onto the collection.
The journey
From a Dutch colony to a scholarship in Los Angeles.
Five moves across three continents, and an eye trained in museums and palaces long before it was trained in a studio.
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Early childhood
Indonesia, ages four to eight
A life of luxury as a young creative in a Dutch colony.
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Displacement
Political refugees
The communist regime takeover cut this short, forcing his parents to escape hardships as political refugees en route to the Netherlands.
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Life in Europe
Four years of museums and palaces
Transitioning from a tropical island paradise to much colder weather was challenging. His Aunt Rietje took him on trips through Europe for four years, exposing him to museums and royal palaces across France, Germany, Belgium, and along the Rhine.
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Immigration to America
Art Center College of Design
His father decided to immigrate to the United States to provide the family with the best opportunities. This period marked his growth in academics and art, eventually leading to a scholarship at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
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Career
Pacific West Design and Gabriel Frans Design
He began painting signs, doing advertising design, and creating mural work. Through trial, error, and the school of hard knocks, he went on to establish successful ventures with Pacific West Design and Gabriel Frans Design.
Selected projects
Rooms people are still living in.
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Celebrity residences
Celine Dion's family home, Holly Madison's Las Vegas and Hollywood residences, and Michael Jackson's Las Vegas Thriller Villa.
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Marriott Hotel, Long Beach
A 22-foot ocean mural for the hotel VIP Lounge, painted for a room that stays in use around the clock.
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Award-winning restaurants
All interior marbling at Darya Persian Cuisine, South Coast Plaza, voted best Persian restaurant in California, and 25 consecutive years of murals and Italian wall finishes for Mangia Bene Cucina.
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Private homes
A Huntington Harbour home turned Tuscany-style estate, a Park City mountain home in Venetian plaster with custom 14-foot drapes, and a San Clemente oceanfront home still celebrated by its owners after 20 years.
What clients and students say
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
I asked for a room that felt like late afternoon in Tuscany. Eduard walked in, looked at the light, and painted exactly that. Guests still stop in the doorway.
Marielle A.Private residence, Laguna Beach
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
We hired Eduard for one ceiling and ended up commissioning four rooms. The Venetian plaster looks better six years on than the day it was finished.
Daniel R.Hospitality group, Las Vegas
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
His course changed how I price and present my work. I came in able to paint, and left able to run a practice.
Sofia N.Decorative Painter Development Track graduate