Jeff Del Nero

The Activity of Making Art

The activity of making art can be a vehicle to carry you through peaks and valley’s in your life. Viewing art, from the perspective of an artist is as good as making art. As you view the marks made by the artist you re-imagine the motions and intensities of each stroke.

These works on paper with pastel are about mark making. These woven lines that for shape and texture can be consumed abstractly or they may represent a place or time that is meaningful to you. The subjective service that a work of art represents becomes the individual poetry we formulate in our mind’s eye. A meaningful experience can be independent for some, or in shared appreciation with many, but the essential element here is what is absorbed into your mind’s eye.

My goal is to make a place where a person will be carried away with while viewing. If you are an art appreciator and you are immersed into the environment that exists in my picture plane - if even for a brief moment - I have accomplished my mission. Every time you glance at this work you are momentarily evacuated from your day and can go into a world inside your head. This world you get sent of to can be a quiet respite in your day. The beauty is, it can happen multiple times a day.

Working as an Artist

Born in Northern California in a rural area inland from San Francisco, Jeff Del Nero has always been interested in the images and sensibilities of the laborer, and common worker. Even more specifically the agricultural laborer, focusing on sowing seed, and harvesting fruit. Since his one man show in 1983, “Agriculture: Laborers & Landscapes,” this has been an essential and driving theme in his work. Del Nero arrived in Southern California to attend Art Center College of Design. His intent was commercial art, but his love prevailed when he decided to focus his energy to painting the images that were personally compelling for him.

Jeff's work has been included in some important group shows, such as “Heroes, Heroines, Idols and Icons,” with renowned artists Thomas Hart Benton & David Alfaro Siqueiros. at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, California curated by Norman Lloyd. When looking at Jeff’s work take your time and enjoy the subtleties, because this work unfolds slowly and methodically. Many times only with the second or third viewing will you begin to discover the hidden harmonies of our human condition he seeks to explore.