Mara De Luca

Interviews by Brainard Carey

Mara De Luca’s

portrait by Lile Kvantaliani

(b. 1973, Washington D.C.) paintings evoke a sense of atmospheric abstractions that bring to mind dusk, sunsets, and planetary orbs. Throughout her work there is a sense of reflected ambient light. De Luca’s work today extends the celebration of illusionism, romanticism, and the sublime with a deeply informed response to modernist painting.

De Luca received an MFA from CalArts, Los Angeles, CA and a BA from Columbia University, NY. Her work has been displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and is in prominent collections, including the Buck Collection at UC Irvine, JP Morgan Chase, New York; Fidelity, Boston; Alexander Plaza Berlin, Germany; New York Medical College, New York; and the University of Oslo, Norway. She has been reviewed in Artforum, Cultured Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Artweek LA, and others. De Luca is a recipient of the 2019 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists. She has taught Painting at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Davis and UC Riverside.

Based in Los Angeles for over two decades, De Luca now lives and works in New York.

Mara De Luca, Western Gate 1, 2024 mixed media on canvas with copper plated element 54 × 96 inches (137 × 244 cm)

Mara De Luca, Western Gate 2, 2024 acrylic on primed and unprimed canvas with brass plated element 59 x 132 inches (150 x 335.5 cm)

Mara De Luca, Cut Western Clouds, 2024, mixed media on cut canvas with copper plated elements, 48 x 42 x 3 inches (122 x 106.5 x 7.5 cm).