Mark Acetelli was born in Detroit and resides in Los Angeles. His mother was a painter and some of his earliest memories were the smell of turpentine and oil paints. Growing up surrounded by his mother’s work, she inspired and encouraged him to become an artist.
Acetelli’s paintings exist to awaken your sense of exploration and adventure. The artist's use of shadow and silhouette creates a characteristic freedom from detailed representation and demands contemplative discovery. A chemistry of complexity and spontaneity, lyrical abstraction of frenzied marks, many of which previously lay hidden, buried beneath strong layers of self-taught expression. Those truths first obscured and then obvious, aim to engage the viewer, allowing them to explore their own interpretation. Reminiscent of Italian artist Alberto Giacometti's figures, Acetelli's figures take on a sculptural form within the minimal dimensionality of the surface of the canvas allowing the viewer to imagine movement, motion, and intention.
Acetelli’s paintings are inspired by the intensely personal introspective journey of life, from the ever-changing complexities of love, loss, birth, and death. The context of his work he describes as, “Absence and Presence” pertaining to how someone or something can be physically gone, but the essence still remains, thus capturing the physical mixed with spirituality on canvas. His application of paint is an extension of that thought process and contributes to an obscured emotional relationship within his work. He works by continuously building up and tearing down, layer upon layer, adding and subtracting. A visceral dance between the conscious and the unconscious until the emotion is expressed.
Acetelli’s paintings may go through multiple incarnations with the past lying just beneath the surface, adding to its overall dimension and depth. In his work, Acetelli seeks to evoke a feeling rather than depict a defined image. He uses primarily oils and encaustics to create thickly layered canvases with emotive bursts of color. Creating a world where imagination and reality come together.
Acetelli’s works can be found in many private and corporate collections around the world, including Bill Withers, Lisa Colburn, Colburn School of Music, Raytheon Corp, Universal Studios, Harbour City Hong Kong, Warner Brothers, Michael Jordan, Stuart Beattie, Claire Forlani, Camryn Manheim, and Francine Maisler.
