Mara De Luca is a Los-Angeles based painter who received a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from CalArts. The work explores a variety of art historical references from action painting of the Abstract Expressionists to late 19th century Romanticism. The work is also inspired by the landscape of everyday life in Los Angeles with it’s traffic, billboard advertising and the “stunning natural beauty coexisting in a cultural climate of facile content.” The style of painting is conceptual and relative to the making of the paintings, which are often made using unique techniques that are non-traditional and incorporate the use of collage and other processes.
“My work in Painting is a reflection on contemporary culture expressed though a diverse and project-driven approach to the medium. Whether through an exploration of historical conventions or by way of mimicking contemporary digital imaging tropes, I employ and exploit the complex range of the medium: its diverse genres and theoretical constructs as well as material, process and craft.” – Mara De Luca, 2013
De Luca’s work has been displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego as part of their Cerca Series solo presentations in 2010. The work is in collections around the world, including the Alexander Plaza Berlin, Germany; New York Medical College, New York; and the Universitetets Kunstsamling, University of Oslo, Norway.
