I was born in a small hill town in Abruzzo Italy.  In 1966 my family emigrated to the United States. I remember creating art throughout my childhood, but I believe it became a passion during high school. I was encouraged by my high school art teacher Linda Ardrey to attend Saturday morning art classes for high school students at Massachusetts College of Art. I did attend and the experience became the start of my journey as an artist. Four years later, I received my BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, as it was called then. While at Mass Art I studied painting with George Nick, Paul Celli, Rob Moore and Richard Yarde. They, along with other professors and the many artists I have met along the way,  contributed to my development as an artist.  I moved to New York City in 1983 where I lived and worked for 10 years.  It was a busy and exciting decade. I worked as a studio assistant for the artist Al Held, I completed graduate work in Art Education at Pratt Institute and spent countless hours creating paintings.  During that decade, I was fortunate to have my work included in several group exhibitions. Eventually, my wife, daughter and I returned to Massachusetts and settled in Scituate, MA.  Since our house is only a hundred and fifty yards from the vast Atlantic Ocean, I never take for granted the ever changing light and expansive sky.  The daily observations of the interplay between sky and water, became the inspiration for my early, minimal representational paintings of the mid 90's. Over time the work evolved from the abstract forms I was creating in New York, to the representational imagery present in my recent work.  

 

 Upon my return to Massachusetts, I also began a long teaching career. First as a teacher in Boston and then in Abington, eventually becoming the Director of Art (K-12) for the Abington Public Schools. During both my career as a teacher and as a director, I have been a passionate advocate for quality, innovative art education programs in K-12 schools.   As a teacher, my aspiration was  to encourage students to appreciate the rich and diverse forms of art created by artists throughout history and around the world.  Like my high school art teacher, I hope I was able to inspire students to appreciate and foster their creativity and ideas. I retired from teaching in 2020 which has provided me with the precious gift of additional studio time.  I will use this additional time to finally explore ideas that were paused as I gave attention to my family and teaching career. I am also looking forward to explore new directions in my work.  I am honored that my paintings are found in many private and corporate collections.  I am currently a Gallery Artist at the South Shore Art Center. My work continues to be included in group and solo exhibitions throughout New England.  If you have any questions or comments about the work please e-mail me.  diradomike@gmail.com