Untitled, Acrylic on panel, 8x10,  2012

My new room, graphite on paper, 8x8,  2012

Stroll on Wall, oil on panel, 20x30  2012

America or me?, oil on panel, 40 x40,  2012

Roots, graphite on Yupo paper,  8x11,  2012

Hedge Fund, oil on panel, 25x30  2012

Cut Throat, graphite on paper, 8x12  2012

White Collar 2, acrylic on panel, 8x8  2012

An innocent man, acrylic on panel, 8x8  2012

So here is some of the work I have completed in the last 5 months. I have made a move toward acrylics. After painting with oils for 20 years I needed to break my pattern to learn more about the images and ways to improve on the final outcome of the work.

I am also going back to my instinct of image. I got caught up in trying to sell art and as I say, you either make art to sell or you make it because you have something to say, blessed and cursed are those who's art speaks to the masses and is rewarded for it.
Blessed because of your material reward, cursed by the limitations, definitions and accolades of your supporters.

I have found after 26 years of creating, my original goal was to have a unique vision, one I forged myself from my mentors and heros. I wanted to be able to say that no one could create the art that Don DeLeva creates. I have achieved that goal my friends. Now,  it's onto the important things in living that I ignored to complete my main life's mission!

I am trying to forget all that I have learned so the art and process can be its own entity.  I know it might be hard to understand. It's like forgetting that you know how to count, you just do it. It's the way method, training and thinking become instinct. If you can do it right, you can grow it into something that becomes an ever unfolding path with everyday that can't exist without you but exists outside of you.

Currently, I am rebuilding my mind with programming, frontend development for the internet.
I am filling my head with JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3 and Jquery, because this has been clearly helping me to create art without art on my mind. I am painting now to escape an intentional thought process. That process is being used and exercised when I building websites and applications.