DECO FOR CURIOUS INTRODUCES ARTIST VICTOR MIRABELLI

Published May 5, 2023
Courtesy of Deco for Curious
Interview by Barbara Soroa
www.decoforcurious.com
Instagram: deco_for_curious

Victor Mirabelli, Black & White and In Between #16, Oil on Canvas

VICTOR MIRABELLI MODERN LANDSCAPE

In this article, I introduce you to a fascinating painter I discovered not so long ago, whose work I fell in love with at first sight and with whom I have been lucky enough to start a new collaboration to sell some of his works.

When you see his work, you will discover that Victor Mirabelli's painting is absolutely hypnotic. His structures, full of strength, seem to float in a sea of neutral colors, dreamy pigments and a subtle play of shadows.

Beauty and elegance are present in each of his works.

The artist Victor Mirabelli was born in Wenatchee, Washington, in a farming community along the Columbia River. He began painting at a very early age, fascinated with color and captivated by the surrounding apple orchards, the farm structures, the rustic terrain, the mountains and the worn signposts along the roads.

After winning many Art Achievement Awards in high school, he attended art school in Seattle, Washington, studying commercial and fine art at the Burnley School of Professional Art and shortly thereafter, moved to New York City.

Victor Mirabelli is currently living and painting in the Hudson Valley in New York.

Mr. Mirabelli has exhibited extensively in both solo and group juried shows and has also served as a guest lecturer and juror for many art organizations and competitions.

He is currently a member of the Salmagundi Club, New York, NY; the Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY; and the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY.

In addition, he has also been an associate member of the Northeast Watercolor Society, the Catskill Art Society, the Kent Art Association and a sustaining associate member of the American Watercolor Society.

His work has been acquired by private collectors throughout the United States.

Victor Mirabelli, Uncharted Terrain Collection #18, Oil on Paper

THE INTERVIEW:
VICTOR MIRABELLI

Could you tell us briefly about your career?

Upon my arrival in New York, I started working as a visual display artist for Bergdorf Goodman and B. Altman and Company. I had the opportunity to design the Charles Jourdan Fifth Avenue store windows using my paintings as backdrops for their merchandise. The theme "Playland” integrated POP figurative imagery using bright sign and oil paints.

My commercial art education gave me the opportunity to pursue graphic design projects as well. I moved on to a career as a designer and art director for several design studios and advertising agencies. I particularly enjoyed working with design studios specializing in print publication launches and redesigns for such publications as Forbes, Food & Wine, The New York Times Magazine and the Chicago Daily News.

As a fine artist, I worked in many mediums—oil, pastel, sign paint and watercolors on a multitude of surfaces: canvas, paper and wood. I also created a collection of 3D shadow boxes and small metal/assemblage sculptures.

As my style developed, I moved from abstract/figurative to landscapes.  I believe my diverse art background with influences from early drawing and exposure to visual display and graphic design, helped me to visualize the placement and design of objects in my landscapes and the use of positive and negative space.

How would you describe your artistic style?

I combine abstract and impressionism in my landscapes. I paint what I grew up feeling, using oil on canvas and paper, done quickly out of memory and then finished. Regardless of where or what I am painting today, I continue to revert to my early memories.

Victor Mirabelli, Uncharted Terrain Collection #14, Oil on Paper

Victor Mirabelli, Uncharted Terrain Collection #16, Oil on Paper

What themes do you usually deal with in your work? What do you connect with?

The surrounding countryside, old structures (barns and farmhouses), the land, fields, trees and pastures, the light reflections and shadows on the land and the four seasons of the year.

What artistic influences have influenced your work?

I have been influenced by Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon, Richard Diebenkorn and Franz Kline for their use of color and shapes and texture as well as by the landscapes of Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper and Monet.

What colors can you say will determine your work?

According to the seasons – Winter: wintry whites and earth tones; Spring: yellows and greens; Summer: wheat and blue-greens; Autumn: amber, oches and orange. And of course black and white.

Any current or upcoming exhibitions we should visit?

Just completed “Black & White and In Between,” at the Argazzi Art Gallery in Lakeville, CT.
Final plans for 2023 exhibitions are in progress.

Could you tell us about a particular project you have done that has been particularly significant for you?

The last one, “Black & White and In Between” a solo exhibition I did in August 2022, at Argazzi Art Gallery in Lakeville, Connecticut. The show featured a body of work that predominately projected landscapes with structures, oil on canvas, using minimal color, mainly black, white and earth tones. This simplicity was carried throughout the process showcasing linear and 1-dimensional structures– simplified abstract shapes.

Any pending project that you would like to carry out?

I’ve been working on a handmade artist book- original paintings, oil on paper, bound with text. I also have an interest in continuing to create a collection of 3D shadow boxes and small metal/assemblage sculptures.

Victor Mirabelli, Café Au Lait, Oil on Canvas

Define yourself using hashtags or tags

#victormirabelli #victormirabelliartist #landscapes #modernlandscapes #art #artist #artwork #nycomtemporaryartist #landscapepainting #oilpainting #oiloncanvas #barnpaintings  #impressionisticlandscapes  #landscapeart #colorfield #smallpaintings #contemmporaryart #fineart #drawing #artcollector

What do you think are the main difficulties in the art world?

Speaking for artists in general: Access to representation in galleries and art fairs and a need for comprehensive education in art history, painting and drawing techniques.

---

Deco for Curious is an online art and decoration concept store based in Bilbao, Spain, whose creator, Barbara Soroa, brings together a careful selection of antique furniture, works of art, vintage objects and rarities from all over the world and especially from Europe, along with other handmade creations.  

The Art Guide ARTALK Presents the Works of Nationally Acclaimed Feature Artist, Victor Mirabelli

Published January 14, 2023 by Helen Kachur
Courtesy of The Art Guide
theartguide.com/landscape-artist-victor-mirabelli

Victor Mirabelli, White Shadow, 36 x 72 inches, Oil on Canvas

LANDSCAPES – ABANDONING TRADITION

“Boundless” is the best description for the landscape work of our new Feature Artist, Victor Mirabelli. Both in creative design and imagery, Victor’s paintings are of vast open landscapes and endless creativity.

Using his trademark method of color restraint and localized placement of highlights, artist Victor Mirabelli has developed a tradition of distinctive rural landscapes. His work focuses on rendered high key components emersed in the suggestion of a weather-like atmosphere. Victor achieves the sky effect through careful attention to composition, placement of the solid objects and highlights that cut across rich open spaces of color to reveal the physical elements of form, texture and shadow. Moving from deep tonal areas to compressed bright values, the artist relies on familiarity of shapes to unify building compositions and foliage in a solidly painted foreground strip of land mass. His innovative use of this technique invites the viewer to study one of the most elusive of artistic concepts; the air that separates, laden in moisture and vibrant in light.

Originally from the Pacific Coast, Victor Mirabelli’s artwork reflects early childhood impressions of spacious landscapes fixed in the vast open plains of North America. His art education began at the Burnley School of Professional Art in Seattle, Washington, until eventually moving to the New York area where he currently resides. Victor’s study of art history and paintings of the East Coast, Hudson River School of Art, influenced the expansiveness of his own landscape paintings, considered to be contemporary, modern works. However, unlike the New York artists, Victor uses a reduced color palette and composition, to create sceneries of open fields dotted by structures that reflect upon a glimpse across a rural horizon or quiet moment while traveling about the New England countryside.

 “… most elusive of artistic concepts; the air that separates, laden in moisture and vibrant in light.”

Victor Mirabelli, White Shadow, 30 x 30 inches, Oil on Canvas

Victor describes his painting method as built layers of pigment applied and mixed directly on canvas in a wet-on-wet technique. Using rapid directional brush movement, he fills the depth of large open space with layers of blended color. His fast pace scumbling seems to then abruptly stop. To some extent, the sudden break in action is detected on canvas and invites the viewer to step a bit closer in search of  Victor’s process, as only then patterns and color transitions slowly emerge. Through thickly painted atmosphere, rectangular structures of limited detail appear, both settled and timeless in their surroundings. Traditional building shapes then take form in a balanced composition of warm sunlit groupings.

For years, Victor relied on the Abstract painting practice of adding or subtracting subject from his canvas arrangements. He continues in using this method to further develop a highly simplified landscape of visual dialogue between the placement of compositional elements. Evolving from patterns of color, basic forms of massed objects explore the sharp-edges of manmade buildings at contrast to softly muted foliage and atmosphere. Random brush gestures then model his painting process and create structures surrounded by foliage that appear fresh and harmonized through value changes.

Victor Mirabelli, Between Earth and Sky, 24 x 30 inches, Oil on Canvas

“… rectangular structures of limited detail appear, both settled and timeless in their surroundings …Traditional building shapes are then revealed in a balanced composition of warm sunlit groupings.“

Victor Mirabelli has experienced national acclaim for his paintings of the rural Northeast open fields and farmland. He has exhibited extensively in both solo and group juried shows. Today, private collectors throughout the US hold his artwork in their collections. He has served as a guest lecturer and juror for many art organizations and competitions. Mirabelli is a member of the Salmagundi Club, New York, NY; the Edward Hopper House, Nyack, NY; and the Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY. He has been an associate member of the Northeast Watercolor Society, a member of the Catskill Art Society and the Kent Art Association, and a sustaining associate member of the American Watercolor Society.

Please visit Victor Mirabelli’s biography and portfolio at his Feature Artist listing with The Art Guide https://theartguide.com/artists/victor-mirabelli 

Edward Hopper House Presents MILTON GLASER: LANDSCAPE PRINTS, September 7 - November 4, 2018, with Opening Reception, Thursday, September 13, 6:30 - 8:30pm

Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center is pleased to announce an exhibition of landscape prints by renowned graphic designer Milton Glaser

The opportunity to exhibit in Edward Hopper’s home is one that Mr. Glaser has taken as both a great honor and an impetus to create his latest and most personal works to date.

The exhibition has drawn attention to a number of connections shared between the two artists and their artistic development, including the influence of time spent in Europe as young men, the resulting decision of each to turn toward a different artistic medium, and a mutual love for the Hudson Valley.

This show will feature numerous landscape explorations influenced by the late monotypes of Edgar Degas, which are also reminiscent of Hopper’s early paintings. In each case, Glaser begins with a drawing – in black and white or color – made from both memory and observation. He then uses a range of digital processes to layer a variety of patterns on top of and below the image, effectively creating a virtual lithographic press. This procedure, which enables him to discern and control the slightest changes in color, has resulted in a series of new works by Glaser that offer an at-once-familiar but unique perspective on the natural beauty of the Hudson Valley.

Milton Glaser is among the most celebrated graphic designers in the world today. His work has been featured in exhibitions and museums throughout the world, including one-man-shows at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center. He is the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from both the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and the Fulbright Association.

In 1974, he opened Milton Glaser, Inc., where he continues to produce a prolific amount of work, including the iconic I ❤ N Y symbol; perhaps the most replicated symbol of our time. He is also co-founder of New York Magazine and Push Pin Studios.

An exhibition poster and special edition post card books designed by Milton Glaser will be available for sale at Edward Hopper House.

---

As part of this exhibition, there will be an Interview with Milton Glaser by Ken Carbone on Saturday, October 13th, 2018 at 2pm.

Local residing design guru Ken Carbone will be interviewing Milton Glaser and will touch on Glaser’s long and creative career that continues to transform corporations, organizations and everyday imagery, Carbone will provide the setting and context for the artist (Glaser) to share his approach to art. There is no fine art vs. commercial art to Glaser, it is all art, and it this devotion to the creative process that guides his powerful vision.

---

All images courtesy of artist.

Edward Hopper House Presents: Milton Glaser: Landscape Prints
September 7 - November 4, 2018
Opening Reception, Thursday, September 13, 6:30 - 8:30pm
Interview with Milton Glaser by Ken Carbone
Saturday, October 13th, 2018 at 2pm

Edward Hopper House Art Center
82 North Broadway
Nyack, NY
845-358-0774
www.edwardhopperhouse.org