"Homegrown" Painting

With all due respect to his mother, Whistler's 'Nocturnes' propelled me into a visual synthesis of scientific exploration and representational painting. Attempting to define God, a multitude of explanations currently exist. I rely upon the act of painting as a means to further my own understanding. Wayne Thiebaud writes: 'We've only begun to scratch the surface of what painting can do.' If I had another one hundred years in which to continually create, I feel I would never get to explore all the new directions that Realism is calling to take it in. I feel very fortunate that, within my own lifetime, my work is acknowledged and comprehended by a wide variety of critics and collectors. This recognition provides me with the freedom to continue growing as an artist. I paint to further my respect and admiration for the magnificent artists who came before me. To revel in the sensual, meticulous work of Ernest Hackle and see it come to life more than half a century later in Disney's 'Fantasia' is the creative lineage I am a part of. Georgia O'Keeffe and Vincent VanGogh are the obvious inspirations. I am just as profoundly influenced by Agnes Pelton and Charles Burchfield. Janet Fish is an absolute revelation for me. I find her use of oil paint has much in common with Sargent's sparkling watercolors, created more than a century ago. Born 4-6-61 in Jersey City, NJ"Mark Venaglia is the premiere Renaissance artist of The Green Movement." -A T & T National Release. Both The New York Times and LA Times state Mark Venaglia is one of the most exciting artists in America today. The artist continues his meticulous exploration of the abstract elements within Contemporary Realism at his studios in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, CA. "There is still another, rather phantom presence which seems to inhabit his botanical world. The truth is- a viewer doesn't only observe and behold Mark's flowers, one actually encounters them. To meet a flower in this show is to be seized by its anthropomorphic power and to accept it's near-humanity. In as much as the finest portraits of humans possess a visual endowment of spirit and life to be considered a cultural experience, so do Mark's floral images. They possess an inner substance which belies the mere beauty of their painted forms..." wrote noted NYC art critic Maria Pavlovich McCarthy.