By permission of the artist, The Cyber Art Show is pleased to feature the second of two 12-piece exhibitions of works by American painter 

Danny O'Leary (born 1963 in St. Paul, Minnesota). 
 

Danny O’Leary was born into a large and loving, musical and artistic family in 1963. The sixth of seven children, he moved with his family a few years later, back to their home state of New Jersey, and then to Connecticut, where he studied at Paier College of Art. There, he gained a strong foundation of knowledge and skill from some of the finest working/teaching artists of the time: Dennis Luzak, Robert Zappalorti, Ken Davies, Joseph Funaro, Leonard Everett Fisher, to name a few. He began working professionally while in college; producing many book cover illustrations, commissioned portraits, and landscape paintings. After graduating in 1986 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, he moved to New York City to pursue  careers in illustration and fine art. 

Early years in New York were a time of artistic development and

experimentation. O’Leary spent this period building an illustration portfolio that would be competitive in the world’s publishing capital.

While illustrating, painting, and continuing his studies at the School of Visual Arts and the Art Students League, he became a studio assistant to Spanish painter, Gabriel Halevi. The several months working in that studio were a time of exponential growth as an artist. The abstract art he handled and discussed daily, coinciding with a period of difficult personal events, inspired him to dig deeper within; spiritually, technically, and artistically. O’Leary produced a body of large-scale, raw, dark, and hauntingly intimate paintings, as well as plans for a series of performance and installation pieces. 

Having fully explored this direction with his work, along with his ongoing passion for illustrating the written word and a real-life need and desire to make a solid living, financially, O’Leary continued to push full-throttle into the “commercial art” world. His training as a realist painter steered him primarily in the direction of book illustration. In the following years he worked with many of the world’s major publishers, and a long list of other clients; prominent magazines, ad agencies, and designers, producing thousands of illustrations and commissioned paintings, including over one 

thousand book covers. As one of the artists who was at the forefront of

digital illustration, he used the knowledge gained through years of working traditionally, and transitioned to working on the computer using programs such as Photoshop and Corel Painter. 

While living and working in the noise and intensity of Manhattan was a source of fuel for his creativity for 25 years, O’Leary found relief and balance in backpacking, photography, and painting trips throughout the rural northeast, the Pacific northwest, the Rockies, and the beaches of the United States. He continues to share these experiences often accompanied by artist friends, and is able to reconnect to fond memories of his childhood spent near the ocean, and in the forests and lakes near his family’s homes. 

Having absorbed the natural beauty of the environments seen and 

studied on these trips, as well as the associated emotions experienced, he’d return to the city or his lakefront studio in northwestern New Jersey inspired to share these by reproducing them as paintings; mostly landscapes, seascapes, and abstract pieces. The resulting work represents one half of the description he gives himself: illustrator/fine artist. These dual titles reflect continuous and parallel paths upon which his career travels, each discipline influencing and enhancing the other. His work can be found in corporate and private collections internationally.

Danny's illustration work can be found here:   

                           http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/DanielOleary/view

The artist lives and works on a lake in northwestern New Jersey with his talented and kind, college student daughter, Georgia.

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  Gallery #619B   

    January 25, 2018