Losing and Finding
An Exhibition of Paintings by Tony Crocetto
August 4-25
Opening reception August 4

Tony Crocetto was born in 1954 in Philadelphia, PA. In 1972 he attended Millersville University where he majored in Fine Arts. He then attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where he studied painting and became certified as an Illustrator. After completing his formal education, Crocetto worked as a Graphic Artist and a Freelance Illustrator, but his first love was painting the landscapes he found in and around Pennsylvania and New Jersey. His first solo show was in Alaska in 1993, and in 1994 he served as the first Artist-in-Residence for the Denali Education Center. Since then, Crocetto has been exhibiting in Alaska, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and internationally, with work held in public and private collections.

“Intimate spaces continue to capture my attention as subject matter. Much of my past work has emphasized my direct experience with these places. Over time, the way I gather information and utilize it has changed, with influences from digital technology and life circumstances playing a larger role. My recent work has come about through an iterative process, with degrees of removal and distance.

“The subject matter is as much the paint and process as it is a sense of place. Familiarity with the landscape allows me to become more liberated in the painting process. Intentionally distancing myself from the visual cues of the original reference material through numerous studies and digital manipulation allows visceral memory to play an important role in the finished painting. I explore the dimension of the picture plane through layering and mark-making – losing and finding, concealing and revealing, adding and subtracting. Edges play against each other, while the ambiguity of figure/ground develops atmosphere. Thus, the painting becomes an artifact that is a record of process. This method of working leaves room for interpretation.

“The content of my current exhibit reflects my attempts to push myself beyond my own perceived boundaries, to move outside of my comfort zone. My desire going into this body of work was to explore the area where my representational and my abstract painting styles intersect. All these pieces are based on some form of landscape reference, some more obviously than others.”

“People mistakenly think that art is about nature, or about an artist's feelings about nature. It is instead a path of enlightenment and pleasure, one of many paths, where nature and the artist's feelings are merely raw material.” – Wolf Kahn

Photo: Tony Crocetto, Igloo Creek