Today we’d like to introduce you to Leo Mancini-Hresko.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born in Boston but left the city to go to Italy when I was 18 on a study abroad program. It was supposed to be 3, maybe 6 months, but I stayed in Italy until I was nearly 30. I had been at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University, and was encouraged to try a semester abroad by the dean of students, Angelo Fertitta. I’ve been back in Boston since 2011. We live in Roslindale, and my studio is in Waltham in the original Francis Cabot Lowell mill complex, one of the birthplaces of the American Industrial Revolution.
Like many folks around my age, I was introduced to painting and drawing primarily through Graffiti. My elementary school teacher Bernard Pendleton saw a glint in my eye, and allowed me to copy in class from his photos of graffiti, and the books Subway Art and Spray can Art. I was fascinated, and by the time I was 12, I spent hours a day in sketchbooks.
Along with doing Graffiti came a lot of getting into trouble. I was arrested for the first time probably at 13 or 14. I spent my 17th birthday in county jail in Westchester County NY. My friend who I was arrested with, the friend I spent the week in County with has since passed away. With the fun I was having doing Graffiti came a lot of chaos. By the time it was time to go to Italy I started taking a lot of solace in hours drawing the human figure.
I found a school that taught traditional, disciplined approaches to working from life- still life’s, portraits and the nude. First as a student, and then part of faculty, I was part of The Florence Academy of Art from 2001-2011. It was an amazing experience, not only to find a school that didn’t try to push ‘modern’, ‘expressive’ art school tropes, but to live in Florence surrounded by the arts and culture.
Please tell us about your art.
I started exhibiting my paintings in 2005 and have been working professionally as an artist since. I paint from nature, impressed upon and called to the glimmer of light on form. The look of my pictures had continued to change over the years, and I have been moving in a more colorful, impressionist direction. I am very fortunate to continue uninterrupted to work on painting all these years- and it takes discipline to make it a life in the arts work.
Primarily I am concerned with getting my painting to emit a sense of light itself, oil paint has the potential for gem-like effects that I chase after. Paintings that celebrate the way the eye perceives light and hope to engage the viewer in how they are painted and awaken their own visual memories.
Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
No- I want my paintings to be timeless, to tug at memories of French impressionism, academic 18th and 19th century painting and 20th century impressionists, realists and social realists. I don’t want to paint ‘American’ or deal with cultural or political issues at all, instead I want to make work that is clearly well made and celebrates life and the human condition. Art that is in the same humanist tradition as the Ancient Greeks’, and accessible to everyone. If you need to read a placard to understand the art, or have a degree to get its message, it has failed.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Summer 2019 I’ll be showing at the Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville, Vermont. The show will compare and contrast around 30 historic paintings (mostly late-20th century impressionist pictures from the likes of Aldro Hibbard, Alden Bryan, Emile Gruppé, and others) with contemporary outdoor painters working in the same areas, painting the same motifs.
I also have pictures on view this summer at Williams Fine Art Dealers in Wenham, Massachusetts. There is a group of my paintings on view this summer in the gallery at The Atelier at Flowerfield near Stony Brook, on Long Island. I will also be teaching a weekend landscape-painting workshop there this July 14-16.
If people are interested in classes, they can sign up for my mailing list on my website. I’ll be running a materials class in the fall and visiting artists Marc Dalessio and Ben Fenske have upcoming classes in my studio. I have pictures on view at Visions of Vermont Gallery in Jeffersonville, VT. And I will have a group of paintings at Tree’s Place Gallery on Cape Cod this September. It’s a group show opening September 8th.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.leomancinihresko.com
- Email: waltham.studios@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leo_mancini_hresko/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mancinihresko
- Twitter: @paintpaintpaint
Image Credit:
Leo Mancini-Hresko
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