Art of Don DeLeva

Only the best! Painting with natural, metal, earth, pigments, for me feels as if I am moving and folding elemental reality at a microscopic level.

Tics are like the passing of time and the electrified energy of air and the particles we are made of. 

Camero and the Triple A Battery  Some people are crowded landscapes with ambition in mind to stake there claim on this world.

 I am told the LHC smashes particles together to find new ones and to understand how a "Big Bang " may have taken place. In one way I am not really concerned weather I am right or not about the purpose of the LHC, although I might find out I am utterly wrong about the purpose of the LHC.  What attracts me to the LHC is more about the side effects of smashing particles particles together and how many universes we bring in to existence and destroy during these smashing sessions.  Think about this, history repeats itself. What if human animals are just a force of nature,, like weather, that creates universes not only in thought but in physicality. Placing particles of minerals, metals and dyes in arrangements on wood panels for me is a way of creating a universe. Once you whitens it or you assign your own icons to the images if images are fabricated or hinted at. Enough for now, time to paint.  

Yellow Camero: 4"x6", oil on panel. 7-6-2023    I am kind of feeling a direction. these small paintings are coming out so fast. Currently, I am  painting with a turp + sun thick + cold press medium. It dries fast like overnight. I add cold press and damar as the painting progresses, in a fat over lean fashion. This mixture is very thin and blend ability of brush strokes is limited. it is almost best for drawing and scrubbing. However the sun thickened linseed oil is good but it's more about drying then getting a reflective pool of graduated color like stand oil does.  I'm telling you this because I have been thinking about a sunthick +  stand oil + turps mix. This should give me a full body, blend able medium that dries faster then just stand oil and turps. It will leave an enamel type finish and color.   

This is a Camero 4"x6" oil on panel. 2023bsai  This is the first of a suite of small paintings. It is called a Camero. Yes, it is like the car however it is spelled with an "e" instead of and "a". This is the first one.

 This painting is 24" x 60" x 1.5", Oil on board. 

Oil paintings by Don DeLeva at the Retrofit Home gallery in Seattle Wa.

  Electroholic: oil on wood, 16" x 16" x 1", 11-23-2020 BAI Electroholic This painting is finally finished! As you can see in the post before this one it was called Death and the Maiden but it just wasn't sitting with me right. I felt it needed more work, and so here it is in it's pre-vanished state. It just needs a few months to dry and then it will get it's final varnish.

 Art is shouting at the universe "I believe I exist!" So "I" am going to try to affect the material world in some way. The goal for the artist is to hear the echo of the that shout. That is why an audience is important, validation that your version of the "i" exists. Notice I did not capitalize the i, mainly because the Me is just a concept.

As I paint my mind seems to work before my hand. Thus my hand is always trying to catch up to what I am thinking. So for example, after about an hour of painting my hand seems to be 3 or 4 hours behind what I have actually recorded from my thoughts into paint. My mind seems to see things and then project them on the panel for me to paint. It is almost like I am taking dictation from my thoughts. Painting in progress, 2018, 24"x30"

During the process of painting there might be times where you just stare at the work for hours on end. That's okay, because if you are not enchanted by the work then maybe the work is not enchanting. Master and Servant. Acrylic on panel,  35"x 45" 2010?