If we lived in a world painted by Joe Mancuso, the Santa Barbara landscape artist — not the Texas sculptor with the same name — there would be lots of open spaces with trees.
“Dramatic skies would threaten to rain at times and the autumn season would last twice as long,” Mancuso said.
A love of nature and art has always been central to his life. As soon as he could hold a pencil and brush, he began drawing and painting, and, in school, he was “the artist” other students went to for “wave” drawings on their folders.
One of his earliest memories was seeing paintings on the walls of his Grandma Mancuso’s house. “They (the paintings) were a magical, peaceful world that I wanted to walk into,” Mancuso recalled.
Now, as an adult, Mancuso transfers the same enchantment with the natural world, which fueled his childhood imagination, to his canvas.
Mancuso will be exhibiting