ARTIST PROFILE

Ever had that itch to try something you’ve never done before in your retirement? I did.  After 5 years of Santa Fe, New Mexico retirement filled with skiing, playing tennis and trying to make sense of the financial markets, I decided to take acrylic painting lessons in January 2005 with my wife, Susan, from Jakki Kouffman, a noted Santa Fe acrylic and pastel artist. I always felt I had a latent, but keen sense of color and graphic composition. After thirteen years of concentrated training with Jakki, Robert DeLeon, and Theo Becker of the Napa Valley plus a number of plein air workshops, I have centered my art interest to landscapes and religious images using water soluble oil paints. I aspire to the breathtaking, impressionist and realistic landscapes of Claude Monet, Wilson Hurley, Peter Hagen, Clark Hulings and Irby Brown (my heroes).

Many of the landscapes exhibited are “starts” from plein air workshops I attended and from photographs I have taken from my home in the Napa Valley, Santa Fe, Alaska, Aspen, Colorado and a recent visit to mainland China. My passion for painting is driven toward achieving a “humbling level” in my paintings of the beauty God has bestowed on the landscapes of many parts of the world and especially on the Napa Valley, New Mexico and Maine. I feel that I am not alone in this art venture and am accompanied by God who is most instrumental in my brush strokes, color definition and problem resolution. I could not have achieved my level of competence in such a short time without such intervention.

In June 2013, my work was accepted to be part of the Guest Artist Program at the Argosy Gallery in Bar Harbor, Maine. The Program involved a showing of my work in May 2014 after which my Maine landscapes were available to Argosy's clientele through 2016.

In my former working life, I was an executive of The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, Georgia and the California wine industry where I was president of Sterling Vineyards, Chateau St. Jean and Lyeth Winery. My wife and I returned to the Napa Valley where her family is involved in the wine business and real estate development. I am available for commissions and sale of my art at 707.339.9590 or gregdelucca59@gmail.com.