Ray Ciarrocchi, grounded in abstraction, embraces a liberating approach to composing landscapes, balancing color harmonies and paint application with intuitive freedom. He uses observed reality as a starting point but ultimately paints to reveal his own vision, blending perception and emotion through his brushwork. This method allows him to craft moods that fuse seeing and feeling, continuing the modernist tradition while advancing a longstanding genre. Ciarrocchi focuses on evocative depictions of the picturesque landscapes of upstate New York. His work reflects a rich lineage of influences—from Claude Lorrain and Corot to the Hudson River School and contemporary realist painters—culminating in lush, semi-imagined portrayals of the American countryside. Each scene is filtered through his personal sensibility, suggesting that capturing landscape truth is ultimately an expression of individual vision. Some paintings evoke the atmospheric, often distant vistas found in fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance art. Like those masters, Ciarrocchi frames his views to create a sense of separation, inviting contemplation. Yet his landscapes possess a distinctly modern tangibility, distilling the essence of place—the color, light, scale, and calm order—into images that evoke the emotional impact of a first encounter. ...
