Gravitating to the influences of the early American Abstract Expressionist movement and Asian calligraphy, Cleveland Dean pulls from various elements and life experience and has formed an individual style that reflects his vision, intellect, passions, transgressions, and love. The centered ideology is that which is to evoke individual thought for the viewer as opposed to being conditioned to what one should think or see which resonates into other aspects of their lives. As a self-taught artist, he refuses to be “professionally” schooled to techniques of art, asserting that a true artist disciplines oneself to determine their own style, and the appropriate means and medium(s) for expression.