Maria Di Russo is a versatile contemporary visual artist, equally skilled at creating oriental, abstract, and transitional abstract art works that are rich in aesthetic and intellectual value.

Since the creation of her first oil-on-wood painting of a Japanese landscape at age 13, she continually seeks new ways of integrating a personal subject-matter into her work. Di Russo draws experience from her formal training with masters in China and Japan and innovates with a fearless ability to develop palettes.

Her most recent body of work is indeed a result of significant yet gradual changes in style and approach that began after she received her first honor in Buenos Aires in late 1990 and her success with El Otro Yo. It is characterized by a shift in media and idioms from oil to acrylic and from landscape to abstract . Also noteworthy is her use of texture and oriental color traditions to form a marriage of traditional oriental art and post-modern abstract art. This, in turn, reveals the influence of such Japanese abstract pioneers as Kazuo Shiraga, Suda Kunirato, Tadashi Sugimata, and Jiro Oyamada.

This marriage of traditional oriental and abstract puts Ms Di Russo in the Transitional Abstract discipline of painting and has resulted in several elaborate works, notably Golden Beach, Midnight Shores, The Mood Trilogy, as well as the color-rich and intoxicating Carmel of Salinas series. In effect, Di Russo has created a unique identity often seen in the texturally rough yet sophisticated handling of paint and powdered pigments.

"I usually sense a direction or inspiration and develop it into abstract expressions. I am told of a signature that shows through my work in the way I mix oriental art techniques" said Maria Di Russo in a recent interview during which the artist pointed to "the influence of such Japanese abstract masters as Sadamasa Motonaga and Yoshishige Saito, but I am always guided by my female intuition."

Please contact the gallery for more information on Maria Di Russo's vast and diverse body of work.

EXOR Galleries, LLC (561) 361-7474 info@exorgalleries.com