Art of Don DeLeva

This isn't a mission for the faint of heart. This is a consistent dedication of sacrifice,  an offering to all those who never knew you offered it.

I paint portraits in abstract form for people who realize humans are abstract personalities. -Don DeLeva

Sometimes i just get ahead of myself. I forgot about the work and just get so involved with trying to find a place to show.  These last 2 month have been about getting my website in functional order. These last 2 years of fortune with two solos at Confluence and disrupting life changes have kept me focused on the basics of maintaining the every day. The heartbreakers for me have been the possible opportunities I had to back down from. The funny part is that I am not sure if these opportunities were fabricated by my own delusions or vague innuendos of reality.   I am happy to say that the last few years of trying to slow down time and listen to the moment has been really good for me.  Diving in to isolation and trying to control my own interpretation of time and control bring me far deeper rewards then any list of exhibitions. I can only be a message in a bottle or one weed that grows in the middle of the freeway on a rock in a infinite universe that offers each of us...

  NOVEMBER 7, 2020 Guy Genis Designs I am honored and excited to be a listed artist at Guy Genis Designs. Guy’s 30-year design career has spanned events, interiors and exhibits all over the world. “Your home should speak to your lifestyle, emotions and sense of beauty. Each client is different. My goal is to amplify memories in a space that is truly lived in and functional, not just a showcase or museum piece. Your home is a place where personal style is relational to comfort and design.” - Guy Genis Guy has an innate ability to listen to his clients and mix comfort with interior and architectural design while blending in your personal style, to create a space that is organic, rejuvenating and an extension of who you are. Visit Guy Genis Design and talk with them about how they can help you design your dream home.

  NOVEMBER 27, 2020 Hundred & Under Art Show, Retrofit Home, Seattle I am excited and honored to be in the Hundred & Under show December through January. Where? At the Retrofit Home, 1103 East Pike Street, Seattle, WA. 98122 Open every day 11am to 7 or call Lori: 206-227-7825 or Jon: 206-227-7826 Here is a chance to start gifting and collecting my art . All of the artist in this show have set prices under one hundred dollars. All of these works ready to hang. My paintings are showing with Creature Panic, Greg Pergament, Jeff Farnam, Cludio Durant and many other artists of Seattle’s street urban culture. Retrofit Home is located on Capitol Hill , noted by the big orange chair outside, providing a fun place to buy gifts, cards, candles, and stylish home furnishings. Retrofit Home is more than just a furniture store, it’s a mini-department store with a sophisticated, fun, and edgy aesthetic. So come see and shop beguiling art from some of Seattle's street urban culture....

  NOVEMBER 27, 2020 Ghost Gallery, Seattle Click logo to visit show page. My paintings are around the middle of the page. The 14th Annual Holiday Mini Art Exhibit! Dec. 3rd, 2020 through Jan. 31st 2021 This show features work that is 10" x 10" and smaller, from artists all over the US, affordably priced for gifting and collecting. More pieces will be added leading up to 12/3. All work will be ready to pick up and/or ship starting Thursday, Dec. 3rd! Let Laurie know if you need your order earlier. Place online orders by Dec. 14th to receive in time for Christmas Eve . INFO: Located at 1111 E. Pike St, Ste B, Seattle, WA 98122 curator@ghostgalleryshop.com Wed-Sun 12-5pm. And by appointment

March 25 2021 In The Company of Crows & Ravens March 13 - May 1, 2021 In the Main Gallery Curators’ Statement The family Corvidae embraces Crows, Jays, Magpies and Nutcrackers. Members of this family are wonderfully intelligent, mysterious and magical. Corvids are social, noisy, aggressive, playful and mischievous. They eat anything from fruit and eggs, to nuts and carrion. We see them playfully completing aerial maneuvers, in the company of eagles at a deer carcass feast, or being mobbed by small birds after raiding a nest. They will follow hunters, coyotes, or wolves and alert other scavengers to help open up a carcass; some cache seeds that if forgotten will become future trees. They mimic, they teach, they learn. They are iridescent and striking, and provide a rich source of inspiration to create art. ~ Curators Jennifer Molesworth & Caryl Campbell Thank you Jennifer, Sarah Jo and Caryl Recently, I had 2 paintings ...

 As if it weren't deep enough i have been told that it is real. I mean i saw it for my own eyes. You know in the city where you are sold and bought like aviators on your preexisting phone plan. It is here in the organization of the logical soup of ones and zeros mixed with electric calculations on the seventh layer of code we all move in a non-gravity world .   Yes starlet you truly are hard your, jeans and studded belt tell me so.  "Smart patrol, no where to go. Suburban robots that monitor reality. Common stock, we work around the clock. We shove the pole in the holes." ~ Mark Mothersbaugh.

In the dust of the New Now her face slowly rises. And ...CUT!  Here they see her cold and confused, which just adds to her sex appeal.  "Which do I choose my darling?"  Then she finishes off her double tall non-fat mocha late, re-applies her MAC lipstick, flips her hair and clacks off into her fade screen with Jordash jeans and Minolo heels.

⚸ 3.8.9.13.5.18.1 Enterprises 1" X 1" or 0.5" X 0.5" 〄〄〄〄〄〄〄〄〄 Off we go to some wild ocean in a raft not of my choosing. pihs fo sloof Wonderful Vivien nice left hand shoe!!

Suit  Art is shouting at the universe "I believe I exist!" So "I" am going to try to affect the material world in some way. The goal for the artist is to hear the echo of the that shout. That is why an audience is important, validation that your version of the "i" exists. Notice I did not capitalize the i, mainly because the Me is just a concept.

Naming a painting is a really hard thing to do especially if you don't know what or why you painted it. When I started, my titles were often as nonsensical as I could make them and then I started to make them try to have something to do with the work. Then they were just dates, then lyrics and poems, honestly I think maybe I have gotten 6 title right. LOL! I feel like titles can lead people in to what you want them to think about your work, but what if you don't want to lead them? Do you just leave everything untitled?

Remember that thoughts can be similar to a limp. Once you twist your ankle.  When most of the sharpest pain was gone your body made temporary adjustments to your balance so you could walk in less pain.  As the pain diminished your leg remembered these adjustments and kept walking that way.  Over a time you had little pain when walking so now you walk with a slight limp, because your leg is to lazy to retrain your walk to the balance before the twist. If you don't like a reoccurring thought, stretch out the twist to regain good balance.   

Ed Pashky In art there can be no direction or method with or without a result. In this way art history can be both limiting and freeing.  It can be limiting in the way that it can assume accepted definitions for mediums that are used. It can be freeing to know the breadth of possibilities within those mediums. Ed Pashky  Ed Pashky Ed Pashky  

It is hard to see the reality that actually is unfolding in front of you. What makes really difficult is when you look at it through the lenses of your physicality, chemistry and symbology. I believe Kant tried to find what reality actually is but only came up with a name for it. What is more important giving it a name or actually proving what it is. Proving what it is would only lead ways to dissecting it then a race to manipulate it from the core.   DEVO, it there any more to say, could you say less or would you be just using less breath to say it?

Since my hand can not physically or mechanically paint at the speed of thought. My mind seems to hold visual thoughts in place on the panel until I can paint them. In physicality and the material world this tends to leave areas of panel unfinished. Most of the time I don't realize I am doing this mental projection. This in turn leads me to believe I am further along the painting then I really am.   It isn't until days after that I realize the painting is unfinished. This result of semi-unfinished work usually brings me to revisiting a painting that I considered  complete. Usually it ends up better then it was  

Painting in progress, 2018, 24"x30" As I paint my mind seems to work before my hand. Thus my hand is always trying to catch up to what I am thinking. So for example, after about an hour of painting my hand seems to be 3 or 4 hours behind what I have actually recorded from my thoughts into paint. My mind seems to see things and then project them on the panel for me to paint. It is almost like I am taking dictation from my thoughts.

Very often, at least 8 times a painting session, my mind tells me what to paint or it dictates a direction to take the paining. Every time I listen to it I end up sanding out the result. The nice part about this process is that it leaves tiny bits of history behind for me to find the truth in. UPDATE: - AI Overview: As of Sunday, October 4, 2026 at 5:46 AM, there have been 6 years, 11 months, 26 days, 8 hours, and 55 minutes elapsed since October 7, 2019 at 8:51 PM. Depending on how you prefer to look at the total duration, it breaks down to: Total Days: 2,553 days, 8 hours, and 55 minutes Total Hours: 61,280 hours Total Minutes: 3,676,855 minutes Total Seconds: 220,611,360 seconds    I am writing this part from the future of the last part to explain the now. I mention the time elapsed above to give you a reference for how long it took me to realize why I was destroying perfectly okay images and not just finishing them.     Remember your math teacher said, "...

Drawing is so immediate so expressive. I started with drawing, it just seemed so natural. I remember collecting pencils and erasers. Maybe I am obsessed with painting because I am still learning how to paint,

During the process of painting there might be times where you just stare at the work for hours on end. That's okay, because if you are not enchanted by the work then maybe the work is not enchanting. Master and Servant. Acrylic on panel,  35"x 45" 2010?