LEON NICHOLAS KALAS
Painter
Painting to me is a life force, not a career. My work consists mostly of figurative and portrait paintings, however, I do experiment in various art movements; Pure Abstract, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Symbolism and Conceptual ism. All Art movements interest me. I have studied portraiture and human anatomy at the New York Academy of Art, The Art Students League of New York, and FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology. My work has been exhibited extensively in New York and Maryland galleries and, in June of 2005 one of my paintings was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My work is collected throughout the United States, Europe, Morocco, Canada, and the Caribbean. My work is also in the Library of Congress, the Clinton Presidential Library, in Little Rock AK, The Ministry of Culture in Bucharest, Romania, and the Museul de Arta Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I have been published in NYArt Magazine, Boheme Magazine, Paris, France, Brooklyn Fine Art Magazine and various newspapers such as Caribbean News, The Brooklyn Eagle and The Brooklyn Currier. I have participated in art camps for cultural exchange in Morocco, Romania, Haiti, Cuba, Rep. of Georgia, formally USSR. Important portraits that I have Painted are for actors Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis, Fashion designer Valentino Garavani, US Senator Roland Borris, and His Majesty, Mohammed VI, King of Morocco,HRH King Constantine of Greece, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Harry Belafonte, and Ultra Violet (Andy Warhol's Superstar of the 1960's . Presidents: Barack Obama & George W. Bush .