MEET THE ARTIST

Daniel Albanese (1961-) was born in Oakland, CA, and for a brief period attended an alternative high school for the arts known at the time as Renaissance School. After obtaining his high school degree Albanese took courses at several California Community Colleges, including Laney College in Oakland, where he first began to take painting courses. From 1987-89 he attended the San Francisco Art Institute and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting. For the next four years Albanese worked in community theatre in the Bay Area building and painting stage-set backdrops. From there he moved to Nashville, TN for a job painting backdrops and murals in a scene shop that created stage displays for the country music industry. In 1996 he moved back to California and was able to join the union that creates movie sets for Hollywood productions. This was both a lucrative career for Albanese as well as time to continue to develop his technical skills as a painter. During the decade that he was employed in the movie industry Albanese was able to work on such notable movie sets as “What Dreams May Come” starring Robin Williams and “Anna and the King” starring Jody Foster. In 2005 Daniel and his wife moved to South Lake Tahoe where they have raised their two children. Along with all the responsibilities of raising a family, he has continued to pursue painting on his own.

Daniel Albanese is not the kind of artist who will wax poetic about the meaning of his artwork. Rather, he is an artist who finds meaning through the act of painting. A very sensitive soul by nature, Daniel is a keen observer of the world around him – which is where he finds the subject matter that inhabits his art. With his vast experience of scene painting, Daniel is first and

foremost a master craftsman. His paintings reveal a mastery of color, form, and illusionistic space that is a visual delight. Whether he is painting the human figure, an intimate still life, or fantasy paintings based on observations of nature, his virtuosic use of oil paint is always evident. There is also a sense of time in all of Daniels’ paintings. And that time is slower than our normal societal pace. His paintings imply a process of slowly layering and building of form until they resonate with an inner life. This current series of painting are based on observations of the very humble forms of dead and decaying tree stumps. Out of these forms Daniel explores a variety of quasi-fantastical treescapes that call to mind the surrealistic visions of Max Ernst or Salvador Dali.