Renato muccillo technique
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American Art Collector 2023
Landscapes of the Heart By Norman Kolpas
Heavy, brooding skies hung low over the Grant Narrows, a corner of the agricultural Fraser Valley some 25 miles east-northeast of downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. Storm clouds wreathed the nearby hills in wisps of white. Winds whipped the air. Yet, remarkably, the irrigation channels that crisscross the land and provide sanctuary to sandhill cranes and blue herons remained tranquil, sheltered by the tall earthen dike walls that control the waters of the nearby Pitt and Alouette rivers.
It was a morning in early autumn a year ago, and, as usual, Renato Muccillo was out strolling in the area. With him was his “studio buddy for the last eight years,” his greyhound, Ajax. “He likes to peel around on the dikes,” Muccillo says. “So he’s one of the driving factors for me to get out there.”
Suddenly, Muccillo was struck by the feeling that he was “the only person on the planet.” The saturated natural palette all around him—the gold of native grasses, the blues and grays of sky and water, the greens of the
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Article by Richard Waugh, from Magazin Art (Winter 2003-2004) courtesy of the publisher.
Renato Muccillo: A Study in Contrasts
“The question of what inspires me to create art is nearly impossible to answer. Art is not a question of inspiration; it’s a question of necessity. Some people communicate what they see with words; I feel my best expressions are painted.” Artist’s Statement
Very few painters achieve artistic success with painting styles as diverse as high realism, impressionism and abstractionism. Yet Renato Muccillo’s masterful use of monochromatic palettes and diffuse light that filters through his uncomplicated landscapes – causing them to fade in and out of focus while capturing the essence of the images – created a surreal atmosphere and near-hypnotic effect on the patrons who attended the White Rock Gallery’s recent group exhibition, On Solid Ground.
Born in 1965 to Italian parents who immigrated to Canada a decade earlier, Muccillo grew up in one of the many ethnic, working class neighbourhoods that give East Vancouver its distinctive cosmopolitan flair. When he
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Living on the West Coast of Canada and having parents who loved outdoor activities, 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 though his art. “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.”
Renato Muccillo’s landscapes have often been compared to those of Dutch masters and 19th Century English artists. However, Muccillo’s images remind us how frequently today’s landscape has been affected and
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