Living on the West Coast of Canada and having parents who loved outdoor activities, artist Renato Muccillo has always found nature to be within arm’s reach. It is something that has held his fascination since childhood and his passion only has grown through his art. 
The Flows of Spring, oil on panel, 16 x 8"
“Being outdoors definitely shaped me as an artist,” he says. “It’s the witnessing of nature, how the smallest nuances, life forms, grow and survive off each other and work together, seemingly serendipitously, and observing how nature has a way of re-creating itself and functioning in almost perfect ways, regardless of what we do to it. It both invited and necessitated my attention, my curiosity and then my desire to re-create and document it artistically in its ever-changing form. That’s what keeps me going back to it. It never ceases to hold my attention.”
Inverted Willow, oil on mounted canvas, 34 x 24"
His first solo show with Arcadia Contemporary will run April 24 through May 16 and will include up to 20 new paintings. Titled Scene/Unseen, the exhibition is homage to the Canadian landscape that he grew up in, as well as to the places that have been changed or no longer exist because of acts of nature or land development.
Tamarack Trail, oil on panel, 8 x 16"
“One of the larger pieces, Flotilla, measuring 48 by 48 inches, depicts a scene—a waterway laden with algae and surrounded by cottonwoods—that has been completely obliterated by man’s intervention, having cut down the trees, installing a pump station to control the agricultural basin and clear out the algae,” says Muccillo. “That is, the very things that bring my landscapes to life. In some ways, the show is my homage to past inspiration and nature, and things that can no longer be seen in real life. I’ve used artistic license to create larger-than-life themes, highly dramatized imagery, not unlike memory itself.”
Flotilla, oil, 48 x 48"
The works in the exhibition were based on locations within a 1-mile radius of Muccillo’s home. The main object is to bring awareness to the smallest details of the landscape, as opposed to its grandeur. He elaborates, “I can get lost in the details of a tree branch, or the translucent reflection of a puddle on a sidewalk that captures the clouds overhead. I’m always looking for the underdog in nature and giving it its due by extracting its beauty.” —
Arcadia Contemporary
421 W. Broadway • New York, NY 10012
(646) 861-3941 • www.arcadiacontemporary.com
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