(Brazilian, b. 1961)
With a rich palette and luscious brushwork, Deladier Almeida infuses vitality into each of his subjects, which range from portraits to scenes of contemporary life to brilliantly observed landscapes. His images of California’s varied terrain, depicted from a bird's-eye view that Almeida achieves by flying over regions of the state in helicopters or small planes, are alive with texture and movement.
Working quickly, with an emphasis on improvised brushwork, Almeida captures the sense of traveling over the earth - geometric shapes of productive land passing in a mesmerizing array of shapes and colors. As in the landscapes of Wayne Thiebaud, with whom Almeida studied, the images beautifully manipulate perspective, presenting us with compositions that pulse with life.
Born in Brazil, Deladier Almeida has lived in California since the mid-1980s, earning his Art degree from the University of California, Davis. Trained by renowned painters Wayne Thiebaud and Roland Petersen at UC Davis in the 1980’s, Almeida’s work marries the restrained quality of Thiebaud’s sleek style with Petersen’s more gestural brushwork, inspired and embraced by other Bay Area artists including David Park, Elmer Bischoff, and Richard Diebenkorn. He has exhibited his work at galleries, museums, and art fairs including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Caldwell Snyder gallery in San Francisco, the Campton gallery in New York City, the Bennington Center for the Arts in Vermont and the Albemarle Gallery in London.
Education
1990 Studio Art, University of California, Davis.
Studied with Roy de Forest, David Hollowell, Roland Peterse, and Wayne Theibaud.
Awards
2005 Best of Show, Crocker-Kingsey Exhibition, The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA.
2003 1st Place, Society of Western Artists’, Manchester Center, Fresno, CA.
People’s Choice Award, 41st Annual Juried Art Show of the Fairfield Visual Arts Association, Fresno, CA.
Select Solo Exhibitions
2015 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St. Helena, CA.
Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St. Helena, CA.
2014 Aerial Abstractions, Campton Gallery, New York, NY.
Southwest Landscape, Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
2013 The Calligraphy of Water: Landscapes of Rural California, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St. Helena, CA.
Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
The Cultivated Landscape: A Tuscan Travelogue, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
Geometry of Gravity: California Landscapes & Still Lifes, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2012 California Landscapes, Caffe Museo, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA.
Picture Perfect, Christian Hohmann Gallery, Palm Desert, CA.
Hidden Symmetries, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
2011 Mirada Fine Art Gallery, Denver, CO.
New New Mexico Landscapes and Grand Tour Figures, Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
Geometry of Occupation, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
2010 World Figures and California Landscapes, Christian Hohmann Gallery, Palm Desert, CA.
New Mexico Landscapes, Blue Rain Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
8th Annual California Landscape, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
2009 New Paintings, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
Paintings of the Delta, Senator Lois Wolk’s office, California State Capitol, Sacramento, CA.
7th Annual California Landscape, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
2008 Geometry of Occupation, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
6th Annual California Landscape, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
2007 Annual Figuration, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
Select Group Exhibitions
2014 Converging Visions: Landscapes of Rural California, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
2012 Artists for The New Century, Bennington Center for the Arts, Bennington, VT.
SF Art Fair, Christian Hohmann Gallery, San Francisco,CA.
2011 The California Landscape and Plein Air Conference, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
SF Art Fair, San Francisco, CA.
The Art of Painting in the 21th Centuy, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
2010 Man Made: Engineered Landscapes, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
Interiors: Still Life & Interior Landscapes, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
The Art of Painting in the 21th Century, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA.
Fine Art Dealers Association Los Angeles Art Show, Los Angeles, CA.
2009 Waterways – Landscapes from the Sacramento Delta, Knowlton Gallery, Lodi, CA.
2007 Sacramento Valley Landscape Conference
2006 Portrait of Mr. Morgan Flagg, deYoung Museum, San Francisco, CA.
A visual pattern of recurring elements emerges that includes the fields, their edges of separation, the arteries that irrigate them and the shadows of the trees that stand like sentries on their banks. Providing produce for millions, these landscapes are in constant flux and rich with life.
It has been inspirational to read this ever-changing visual story and reflect it in paint on canvas, recombining these recurring elements into formal compositions as a writer would describe using the building blocks of words. I use reduction and abstraction in this visual language, allowing the essential geometry of these shapes to drive the structure of the composition.
The color harmonies, edge compositions, temperature keys, and scale that ensue are all functions of the underlying structural construct.
The resulting narrative on canvas is, when successful, a departure and an extrapolation of the landscape which, in simplifying it, dignifies it and reveals its essence.
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