RENATO MUCCILLO: The Promised Land

It is forever the magic hour of dusk in Renato Muccillo’s dreamy display of jewel-like panels at Arcadia Contemporary

- Michael J. Pearce

He invites us to follow the rich, lazy meanders of his muddy river toward the eternal globe of the setting sun, the sensual golden god of the ending day who sings the creation into the seductive arms of night and who dreams in soft amber before the silver dawn of lunar light.

Muccillo shapes the magic scenography of this heavenly earth in his studio from his memories and photographs gathered on exploratory journeys in the wilderness around Vancouver, British Columbia, collecting images of the living land like a botanist seeking selected specimens for his herbal, seeing the setting with the wisdom born of decades of knowing the needs of his method—shooting photos for his careful memory and sending his drone into the sky to capture digital samples of the spirit of the river’s spread. The drone reveals new visions of the flooded valley. “The Fraser River [in British Columbia] tears the land up and creates puzzle-like formations that are unbelievable,” he says, “The things you see! The drone has been a great tool—it has opened up a lot of possibilities.” His embrace of new technology has allowed him to emulate the work of a long lineage of inspired artists who saw the continental landscape as a sacred place. Beneath his brush the gray mists and purple peaks of the 19th century’s earthly paradise have evolved into magical and golden compositions of an aerial tonalism for the 21st century, like new revelations of Eden.