The first question I ask painter Deladier Almeida is “how” he sees the landscape. If his paintings are the answer, it’s as geometric forms and defined shapes that he stitches together into vibrant, undulating landscapes that are distinctly his own.
“Seeing and painting are the same thing,” says Almeida. “Your ability to paint is equal to your ability to see. Seeing is editing visual reality. And the ability to do that evolves with the work [and] it becomes easier to choose what best serves the painting.”
Light Touch, oil on canvas, 45 x 90”
Almeida’s latest body of work, the subject of a solo exhibition at Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery from March 14 through 28, is a mix of his aerial views of California’s Central Vallery and another favorite subject of the artist’s, the Tuscan countryside.
For his California scenes, Almeida gathers his reference material from the vantage point of a helicopter in order to provide a broader view of the landscape. In Italy, he can survey the land from the heights of the province’s many hill towns.
“If I want to depict the place I live in with all its connections to the land, and the agriculture, you have to get up above,” says Almeida, who lives in Davis, California. “All of these changes in the environment can be seen…it’s a fantastically rich visual space that can always be tapped. I got enamored with the way of looking at the land this way from a vertical distance from high up. I just love it.”
Specular, oil on canvas, 32 x 24”
Light Touch emerged after a helicopter ride in late 2024. The California farmland is shook out like a patchwork quilt below, woven through with meandering lines dotted with Almeida’s stylized trees and pops of color that draw the eye toward the mountains on the distant horizon. Look closer and you’ll see another signature of Almeida’s work—his playful use of perspective. Some blocked out parcels appear to rise up vertically or take on a geometric dimensionality, abstract elements he pushes as far as he can and still keep the painting grounded in reality.
“You can bring in all kind of abstract and pictorial devices…but you can still tell it’s Napa Valley in the afternoon. If you can sustain that, it’s a successful painting.”
Almeida’s solo exhibition opens at Medicine Man Gallery on March 14 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. —
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