Opening Reception

"Silver Rod"

Paintings by Joe DeLuca

3:00-5:00pm with an Artist Talk at 4:00pm

Refreshments and light hors d'oeuvres provided

Come and go event, Free to attend, All ages welcome

On view: March 16 - June 15, 2019

Joe’s work best categorized as Neo Dadaism - mixed media paintings that bring together paint and bits of stuff from life. His work has strong artistic connections to Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Anselm Kiefer. His use of materials and his approach to creating highly textured surfaces is what connects his work to the work of these artists.

His works are personal and reflect a life that has a strong connection to location, family, and history. Joe invites the world to be a part of his muted expressions of reality using bits and pieces found along the road of life and fuses them with wisdom gained and a life well lived.

Artist Statement:

My work is a microcosm of the landscape and deals with my emotional and intuitive responses to my environment. I am fascinated by textured, weathered and time-worn objects and surface. The effects considered are those of light, atmosphere and shadow. Extended travels to Europe, especially Italy and Portugal have resulted in important motivational sources in my painting.

Italy is a place to better understand my heritage and an environment is which to seek and study high art and architectural treasures. The Etruscan civilization become a significant resource during the early 80’s.

In recent years, my interest shifted to Portugal, as it seemed a natural extension of my interests in antiquity. This, the oldest country of Europe, offers a powerful, rough presence and unpretentious charm.

I presently work on large-scale canvases and include such material as tar, cardboard, metal, wood and found objects. The works, if successful, give the appearance of ruined sections of old walls, excavated from a prior ancient setting. The surfaces often reveal multi-layered, richly developed textural patinas through the utilization and combination of paint, collage, inlay and found materials. Present images attempt to visually appear to mark a passage of time, as well as to describe the metaphysical nature of things. These considerations seem, at this time, to be reasons to dignify a particular space and maintain the delicate balance that life necessitates and demands.