Born in San Diego, Victor Angelo studied locally at the Athenaeum and University of California, as well as the School of Visual Arts and Art Students League of New York. His amazing paintings, refined though dynamic, take spectators into stimulating new realms of visual consciousness. Bound to the arts from early on, he drew colorfully in preschool and was delighted by the infinite possibilities of visual conception. During childhood he perused a surplus of illustrious paintings ranging from early Renaissance to Modernism on treks to museums across Europe. Adolescence saw his levels of skill advancing rapidly from personalized tutorials in traditional still life combined with figurative instruction at the Athenaeum. Elaborate ideas were realized, numerous awards were won, delicacy adorned the school publication; teachers lectured about his prodigious work in art classes. They eventually surprised him one day with a blank canvas, brushes and loaded palette, encouraging him to proceed. His very first canvas was publicly unveiled highlighting an exhibition at the Museum of Art in San Diego. After going to the museum, president Stephen Burns of the Art Institute felt impressed enough to invite Victor to a solo show for the grand opening of their newly renovated downtown building. Urbane crowds flocked to his exhibition eager to witness more of the "spectacular creative talent" journalists also admired for its "ingenious use of color" equipped with "high caliber sophistication in his exquisite handling of paint." Among those in attendance was Betsy Lane from the Parisi Gallery, Deborah Owen who later chose his works for an inaugural benefit show, following award shows by museum executives Howard Fox, Arthur Ollman, Mary Beebe, Alma Ruiz, Don Bacigalupi, renowned historian Dr. Donald Kuspit. Victor's paintings soon started to appear in shows nationwide and abroad. Exhibits include the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, Museum of Fine Arts, La Jolla Athenaeum, Oceanside Museum of Art, Museum of Living Artists, Art Institute of San Diego, Hunter Museum of American Art in Tennessee, Museum of International Contemporary Art in Brazil, Flash Art Museum in Italy, Fine Arts Museum in Japan, Musee D'Art Contemporain in France, The Palace of the Forbidden City, Kunsthalle in Switzerland, Kunsthaus in Austria, Vancouver Art Gallery of Canada, MCA Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art in Colorado, Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates, University Art Museum in Texas, L' Association Francaise D' Action Artistique in France, Artisti Contemporanei Firenze Metropoli in Italy, France Alliance in New York, The Olympics, Music Center, Convention Center, Watts Towers Art Center and Museum of Art in downtown LA, benefit shows at posh New York galleries of John McEnroe, Robert Miller and Sperone Westwater. Commissions include large-scale works with proceeds donated to charity for the City of New York and Los Angeles. London, Paris, Lyon, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Copenhagen, Eindhoven, Brussels, Toronto, Vancouver, Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, Miami Beach, Saint Petersburg, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, Manila, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, New Delhi, Ulan Bator, Athens, Istanbul, Roma, Barcelona, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi, Milan, Jakarta, Moscow, Bangkok, Petrozavodsk, Karachi, Canberra, Sweden, Chongqing, São Paulo, Cairo, Bogotá, Guangzhou, Mumbai, Kiev, Dubai, Russia, Santiago, Brasilia, Johannesburg, Wuhan, Lisbon, Busan, Amsterdam, countless acquisitions from admiring collectors around the globe. Victor consumes large canvases with enduring passion for hours on end. On such scale he inhabits an ambiance informed, but not limited to, present-day reality. Multiple facets of world cultures and the technical age are narrated through different breeds of lines leading over emblematic contours. Victor's signature refined line is handled in a serene rhythm using custom tailored brushes. Impeccably layered imagery entices spectators captivated by his resonant color orchestrations. Declared "the contemporary abstractionist who paints with astounding color and complexity," art connoisseurs reflected upon his "exceptionally gifted capabilities as draftsman and colorist" apparent even in his early works as being "equivalent respectively to that of Matisse and Kandinsky." Concurrently working several paintings of various series into evolution, the prolific artist gradually alternates canvases. Onlookers frequently perceive his subject matter to embody movement inside physical, biological or otherworldly entities. An assortment of interpretations readily attach to his art of open-ended metaphors. Portrayals in his work document as they correlate layers of pensive notions. Victor reveals the otherwise invisible flows binding humanity to its habitat by configuring varied components in unison. Ranges of human interaction merge in novel territory that generates meaning on diverse levels of perception. Thus his conceptions provide both conventional and psychological depth. Victor Angelo brings the essence of both ancient and modern world cultures into the vast realm of his body of work. Filled with historical references, the innovations are varied in form, multi-layered in space, engaging in intricacy, lyrical in line, and emphasized by his distinct passion for color. Harmonious yet rhythmic, energized while retaining balance, Angelo's paintings challenge and examine systematically. Splendor abounds in Victor Angelo's plush abstractions. His vital contours and lines cascade across the vast canvases, circling, floating, puffing, swirling. The models of perfected shape and dashing bands seem the result of daring skill and fanatic patience as the paint mazes into natural shapes, half-calculated, half- spontaneous; a carnality as rooted in the lush color as in the vibrant, abundant and often suspended motion. Here action painting lacks its original essence because it somehow knows its destination, has a kind of foresight into its own final presence. That is why Angelo's shining ethereality directs itself so freely to apparent construction. There is a substantial risk in his massive scale, but that is instantly brought under control by his unification between image and convoluted space. It has abandoned its concentration of sublime weight by turning brilliant. Skillfully combining field, form and line, Victor Angelo originates a spatially enigmatic region that permits him vast painterly areas to explore. His canvases vary from modest to grand scale, making color, form and texture simultaneously central in the viewer's focus. The works possess ample energy and sentiment, covering new territory in modern painting. -Text reprinted 1998-2000/2002
