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| Tony Luciani AOCA |
My work has been called "realistic" and "traditional", yet I feel that
description.
My influences are the Italian Renaissance painters as well as Van
Eyck and Bruegel the Younger. I admire the work of Kathe
Kollwitz, Eric Freifeld, and Stanley Spencer.
I had many great teachers, but the greatest were the works in the
drawing cabinets, museums, and churches of Europe, where I
lived for three years. My maturity as an artist developed while
living and painting in the small village in Italy where my family
came from.
All of my line drawings are done on location. Later (sometimes
years later), I work out the lights and shadows in my studio,
creating the atmosphere I want to convey. These finished
drawings are then used for information when I come to do the
paintings. Although the misty, dreamlike quality of Italian light, so
different from North American light, came through in my earlier
works, I am more interested at this point in peering into the
shadows, which have their own glow.
I want the viewer to be drawn into the work, to be captured by the
detail, to step closer and discover what is in it. But, I hope people
will look beyond the detail to find a deeper meaning.
My work is spiritual, although I am not religious. Rather than
achieving a photo-realistic likeness, I try to capture the feeling I
get from a mental visualization of my subject. I imagine it rather
than copy it. Subject matter is less important than mood and
feeling, both of which come within myself. This is why I would call
my work interpretive. I put so much of myself into my
paintings that, in a sense, each one becomes a self-portrait.
-Tony Luciani
description.
My influences are the Italian Renaissance painters as well as Van
Eyck and Bruegel the Younger. I admire the work of Kathe
Kollwitz, Eric Freifeld, and Stanley Spencer.
I had many great teachers, but the greatest were the works in the
drawing cabinets, museums, and churches of Europe, where I
lived for three years. My maturity as an artist developed while
living and painting in the small village in Italy where my family
came from.
All of my line drawings are done on location. Later (sometimes
years later), I work out the lights and shadows in my studio,
creating the atmosphere I want to convey. These finished
drawings are then used for information when I come to do the
paintings. Although the misty, dreamlike quality of Italian light, so
different from North American light, came through in my earlier
works, I am more interested at this point in peering into the
shadows, which have their own glow.
I want the viewer to be drawn into the work, to be captured by the
detail, to step closer and discover what is in it. But, I hope people
will look beyond the detail to find a deeper meaning.
My work is spiritual, although I am not religious. Rather than
achieving a photo-realistic likeness, I try to capture the feeling I
get from a mental visualization of my subject. I imagine it rather
than copy it. Subject matter is less important than mood and
feeling, both of which come within myself. This is why I would call
my work interpretive. I put so much of myself into my
paintings that, in a sense, each one becomes a self-portrait.
-Tony Luciani
| ARTIST STATEMENT |
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