One of my earliest painting teachers was a man named Yusa Model, who was an excellent painter and I guess he worked mostly in the 40’s and 50’s as a non-objective painter, and while well thought of, he chose ultimately to teach and not to show work although he had a pretty highly accepted posthumous show. He was the husband of Lisette Model, who was a well known photographer again of the 50’s and 60’s. ...(I worked) with Larry Poons, Jules Olitski, photographers and others.

Painting is expressive of human life, human beings, in its fullest sense. John Dewey says it’s the highest intellectual achievement of man--which kind of leaves rocket science somewhat behind, where I think it should be.  

Also, and I have spent the most intensive years of my life, perhaps other than painting, in my work as a psychoanalyst. I think that it is the involuntary, expressive behavior of the therapist, which is what you work with in helping the patient or relating to the patient. So when they say psychoanalysis is an art, I think that’s what they really mean. Also, like painting however, it is founded on a thorough understanding, hopefully acquired joyously, of technique.

Dominick Antonelli.  Painter.  New York City, New York, U.S.A.  Mr. Antonelli studied during the 1950’s at the Art Student League, as well as with Yusa Model, Larry Poons, & Jules Olitski.  His paintings have been exhibited at Hunter College, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Lincoln Center Gallery, and Betty Parson Gallery.

My name is Dominick Antonelli. I’m an abstract painter or non-objective, I guess you would call it, color field. I’m from Brooklyn, New York, where my parents came from Italy in the early 1900’s and where I grew up.

Painting is a form of self-expression, where you have a chance to somehow put yourself on canvas: your thoughts, your feelings, who you are at the point that you are painting. Developed over the years, it affects the way that you work. But when you work, to be expressive means to be intuitive, involuntary. It’s not a written speech.  It’s some of the thoughts and feelings that come to you in the moment. And that’s why painting I see, along with other real theorists, as a form of self-expression which is expressed involuntarily, as it must be.

My maternal grandfather was a cooper and cabinetmaker in Italy, and I think that because my mother so idealized him had something to do with my getting interested in craft and ultimately model plane design and ultimately moving into painting. 

Dominick Antonelli