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Dalton Portella

Surf Photographer

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Dalton Portella

New York, USA

Dalton was born in Miami, Florida April 4th 1958. He lived there until the age of 12 when, after divorcing his father, his mother moved him and his three sisters to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

He has been drawing and painting most of his life, starting in Miami taking Art classes on weekends as a young boy. Continuing through High School in Brazil and on to United States International University in San Diego where he majored in Art. After a year he moved north to Santa Cruz and attended Cabrillo College briefly before transferring to Parsons School of Design in New York.

Dalton lived in New York City for twenty years, painting continuously and working commercially as a freelancer for Miramax for the last ten, retouching their posters and more recently branching into design. In 2001 he moved to Montauk, NY.

Artist Statement…

My concept is to challenge the definition of painting by blurring the distinctions of medium. By marrying different mediums, a metaphor emerges for what I see as necessary in order for our society to survive - the acceptance of differing philosophies. In art, the acceptance of new technologies and mediums is essential for innovation and growth.

With my art, I capture essence; the essence of places I've been, emotions I've felt and the subjects I paint and photograph. I portray the broad range of the human experience.

I use my art to demonstrate that all is connected. one piece will feed the next, common elements appear in a series, across a variety of mediums. A watercolor will turn into a digital piece, which will in turn become a work on canvas. A work on canvas will be combined with photography and transferred to paper where it will then be worked on with pastel, showing how a change in texture, composition, size, medium or the mark will change our response to the piece. This enables me to explore all the elements that I find important for my art, using all the tools at my disposal.

With this concept in mind, I create images that invite the viewer to trace the image's origins and inspiration. I invite the viewer to follow the transformation of a watercolor to an oil painting to a digital piece. I invite them to conjure up their own interpretations. I don't want to explain my personal view of a particular piece until they've explored their interpretation.

I want the work to provoke thought and evoke emotion.

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