Tony de Carlo 

 

Tony de Carlo is a native of Los Angeles, California, and has been painting every day for the last thirty years. A self-taught artist, he began learning by drawing and painting in journals as a young teenager, each day expressing himself through his visual diaries. Although he abandoned his journals 15 years ago, to work solely on canvas and wood, he continues treating his canvases like pages from his diary, reflecting and expressing his day-to-day life and experiences in his work. Most of the subjects in his paintings are people he knows personally, and the backgrounds contain elements from his life; his home, his dogs, his city, his neighbor-hood park, his gardens and his relationships. He never does any preliminary drawings for his work, but rather makes the attempt to let something flow out from within him.

Some of his work mixes religious iconography with homoerotism, These beautiful portraits and other images blend elements of sensuality, religion, spirituality, and nature with Southern Californian, Mexican and Mexican-American ethnic and artistic sensibilities. Tony's extraordinary talent combines these influences and elements, and brilliant use of colors, to produce his unique vision.

His work is exhibited regularly in museums and galleries throughout the United States and is held in many collections around the world.