back   |   home   |   next
international drawing annual 9 exhibition-in-print
online resource





Domenic Cretara
Long Beach, California

domnbetty@aol.com

www.cretaraart.com


detail image

statement

My work is based on observational drawing of the human form. I consider myself part of the contemporary figural, narrative painting tradition although I also consider myself as much an abstract artist as a realist, because of the importance of abstract issues of space and surface in my painting.

The drawing selected for inclusion in INDA9 is part of a series entitled "Generations" which explores continuities within the generations of my family history. It depicts my wife and me in my studio with our two children and the first of our grandchildren. It is not a "snap shot". I composed it from many preliminary drawing studies because I wanted to give a sense of grandeur and importance to the ensemble paralleling the idea of creating artwork in the studio with the idea of creation in terms of the growing family. Drawing is the foundation of everything I do as an artist. For me drawing means a clear, harmonious depiction of form in space through a controlled use of light and dark values. It is the principle way I work out the organization of my paintings. It is visual thinking.

I am a former Fullbright Scholar (Italy 1974), and have been been painting for over 50 years.  I've had numerous solo and group shows at museums and art galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle and San Francisco as well as in Italy, France and Spain. My works are in numerous public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Wiggins Drawing and Print Collection of the Boston Public Library, The Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara, California, The Riverside Art Museum, The University of Delaware, The Museum of Modern Art in Macedonia Greece, Cerritos College, Boston University, California State University Art Museum in Long Beach, the collections of Joel Schumacher and Claude Bernard. My work has also been included in many anthologies of contemporary painting and drawing and has been the subject of two retrospective exhibitions (The Las Vegas Art Museum, 1998 and the Triton Museum of Art, 2013) as well as numerous magazine articles and art reviews in newspapers and art blogs.

I've been married to my wife, Elizabeth for 44 years and I am the father of two children and the grandfather of four.

 

 

 

bio

born: 1946, Chelsea, Massachusetts

education

Boston University, MFA, 1970
Boston University, BFA magna cum laude, 1968

selected awards/honors

Retrospective Exhibition; Triton Museum of Art, 2013
Solo Exhibit, Frye Art Museum, 2001
Camargo Foundation Fellowship, Cassis France, 1978
Fulbright Hays Grant to Italy, 1974

selected publications

Foreword," Portrait Painting Atalier" by Suzanne Brooker, Random House, 2011,
"Morandi and Etching", Catalog Essay, Sixth International Etching Biennial, 2009
"Planning a Well Structured Portrait", American Artist Magazine, 1996
"A Course in Figure Drawing", The Artist's Magazine, 1990

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Solo Exhibit, Susan Schomburg Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2001
Solo Exhibit, Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 1987
Solo Exhibit, Segal Gallery, New York City, New York, 1984, 1985
Solo Exhibit, First Street Gallery, New York City, New York, 1983

selected group shows

"The Figure in Contemporary Art", Cypress College Art Gallery, 2012
"The Back View, Prographica Gallery, Seattle, Washington, 2011
Representing LA, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, (Traveling Exhibit), 2001
"Drawings V" Koplin Gallery, Los Angeles, California, 2000

Copyright © Manifest Press