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Joseph Lorusso was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1966 and received his formal training at the American Academy of Art. He went on to receive his B.F.A. degree from the Kansas City Art Institute. Born of Italian descent, Lorusso was exposed to art at an early age. Through several early trips to Italy, his parents introduced him to the works of the Italian Masters. Lorusso would look to these influences throughout his early artistic development and they are still evident in his work today.

While in school, Lorusso majored in watercolor and considers himself self-taught as an oil painter. He learned to paint by studying the works of master painters, often losing himself in the halls of the Chicago Art Institute during lunch hours, which frequently turned into afternoons of self-study.

Joseph Lorusso creates landscapes and figurative works. In painting these subjects, Lorusso has concentrated on honing his powers of observation, especially as it concerns to color, texture, form and composition. Lorusso’s paintings have been described as warm and dreamlike, places of restful escape with a sense of spirituality, and share timelessness with the works of other eras.

Discovering the works of the Impressionists, he gravitated towards the works of Manet and Vuillard. Lorusso searched for similar work of such emotion and soon became an avid student of painting, seeking out and immersing himself in the works of various artists. This path would ultimately lead him to the works of Sargent, Sorolla, Whistler and a whole army of lesser-known yet equally capable painters. Within this group of artists, Lorusso would find a sense of identity. In these masterful works, he saw the power to harness emotion and convey it with power and confidence, yet with delicacy and tasteful restraint. He also saw in these artists the ability to express the “essence” of an object with just a few carefully chosen brushstrokes, creating a visceral and intuitive state of painting.

http://www.josephlorussofineart.com/