PROFILE

Mario Blanco was born in Mexico City in 1964, where he was raised among a family of talented Artists.
His family however did not gain their notoriety from Arts of the visual kind. They dominated their community in the arena of music. A brother in the National Conservatory of Music, and classical pianist for a mother. He also had a grandfather who was a trumpet player, a pianist, and eventually became the Orchestra Director, while having his own radio show; he planted in Mario the seed for love of the Arts.
Mario struggled to fit into the musical Arts, always feeling like an outsider. During school time he would find himself scribbling and sketching. That is what eventually turned out to be the start of his true artistic expression.
Skipping school hours to visit museums and galleries to be near the Art form that truly touched him, he ebbed away from his formal education. He dabbled in theater, acting, and dancing, but it was not until years later that he delved back into the Art of "the visual kind". His son Brandon developed an interest in Art and brought canvases, brushes, and easels back into Mario's life.
Father and son now share passion for creating in mixed media and also sometimes exhibiting together.
"Exceptional galleries and active collectors both domestically and abroad, fully reinforced this Artist's playful obsession with his "figurative way"

Southern California would be Mario Blanco's home from the late 80's to the present and his Muse in many significant ways. Fellow Artists, Mentors, Friends and a colorful Coastal haven would prove inspirational. Artistic projects escalated dramatically in the late 90's and early 2000's in San Diego. It was in San Diego that local galleries and private collectors first began representing and collecting his Figurative and purely Abstract Body's of Work.

"Painting for me is like play intensified, thought still a kind of therapeutic journey....A place I can loose and find my self simultaneously. My paintings are personal until they become complete.

I enjoy it when my finish work serves as a vehicle for interpretation, imagination and discussion. To this end, I find the pieces I struggle over most, usually my best efforts".

"The Serious Art of Play"

A love for color and passion for paint and instinct for structure, with these simple tools, Mario Blanco builds his pictorial world. It is an unfettered
world, free of superfluous details and hackneyed specifics, free of commitment to a single style a world where chance and choice take turns a bat. In this painterly realm, only two rules apply: for the Artist "Do what you please "for the viewer " See what you wish ".
Abstraction and Figuration cohabit in Mario Blanco's Expressionists paintings. The Artist rich surfaces and playful approach to subject matter offer an opportunity for any number of interpretations.
In a sense Mario Blanco's painting relates to a range of post world war II painting traditions in America, from the Abstract Expressionists in New York to the Bay Area Figurative painters in San Francisco. His undeniable infatuation with the texture of paint and the use of both thin, ethereal washes in some instances and thick layers of viscous pigment over texture, contrasting under painting in others mark him as yet controlled manipulator of the medium. Color rules but structural underpinnings or carefully arranged pictorial elements always play a significant role.
Playfulness and exploration are Blanco's true subject matters. His paintings represent a pure visual expression of freedom that appeals, both to the viewer's eye and the Artist's own desire for an easier, more play full take on life and Art.