Paul Santoleri

B.1965- Philadelphiadrawing is my key to the other side...line is my why at least for now...The work is a way to keep time, to maintain an awareness of my own relationship to my inner and outer world. I incorporate objects that I collect, images from dreams, flowers, blooming and decaying in my backyard, stories and postindustrial waste, and anything else that slips out of my brush and through my line. The images are loosely in the tradition of landscape, and often mountainous and dense. I wish the works to feel and be organic, to have no beginning and no end, to reflect a repetitive action, like the act of painting itself. I often reflect on the beauty in decay in my drawings, and the landscape gives way to a deeper storyline that disturbs and intrigues me. The work inevitably reflects my own views of the planets demise, and sometimes I use the flower as a metaphor for the life and death cycle of the natural world. But because I don't see a distinction between people and the environment, I find that the cycle itself is awesome, awful, and magical like the potential of artwork in itself. I travel often to challenge my senses to open up and breathe freely.

Skowhegan School, 1991; & 1993 as fresco assistant
University of Arizona, Tucson, MFA( painting);
Tyler School of Art, Rome , Italy and Philadelphia, PA; BFA (painting)

Chateau de Trousse Barriere, Briare France (Loiret) 2019
MainLine Art Center Haverford PA, USA 2017
Valdosta State University, Georgia, USA Dedo Maranville gallery 2018
Philadelphia International Airport 2014 and 2017
Chateau de Trosse Barriere, Briare, France 2017,16
Kansas City Artists' Coalition 2018