Darryl is from upstate New York and the once world capital of Photography, Rochester, New York, home of the Eastman Kodak Company. He would be labeled the so-called ‘creative type’ who didn't think twice about living the artist lifestyle. He learned his art on his own, early in his professional education starting with his initial studies of drawing by pencil on paper in human anatomy class; here he drew the intricacies of the human body didactically in order to better know bodily functions and eventually to use that knowledge professionally as a doctor of chiropractic. From pencil drawing, he ventured into pen and ink drawing, pastels, oil painting, and collage. His early themes were born out of the plight of the homeless in public view. His work over the last 50 years, has ranged from traditional landscape, to Sicilian puppetry, and the abstract art genre. His latest series of works he calls ‘Hanging Out’ and depicts high rise building sites in the initial stages of construction in and around where he lives in Manhattan; with laborers, suspended in air or as it seems to appear— depicting the intimate synchrony and camaraderie of these men outside in the elements proud of their place in the labor market and the work that they produce.

His work celebrates the joy of discovery when sometimes only a glance at something in a piece of his art is enough to connect with the viewer: asleep in the park on the grass with patent leather purse next to the the homeless woman conveying the plight of the ‘dispirited’, let alone ‘desperate’ niche in our society. This travesty he started recording as visual art over 50 years ago when it’s face, morose then, unfortunately remains the same to this day.

Contrapuntally his latest scenes in his ‘Hanging Out’ series, depicts a celebratory nature in the air literally and figuratively, a ‘bravo’ to life!

darryl.cera@gmail.com
917-536-1099