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Thomas Easley’s art career began in 1979 when he began to illuminate selected poems from his book “Rainwater.” Through the process, Easley realized he had an unexpected talent for painting. To test himself, he painted Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks, which turned out to be an accurate copy of the work. Following this, he copied the Mona Lisa in watercolor on photo board, sold the painting to a art collector in California and moved to England to become an artist.
In England, he refined his skill as a classical realist and specialized in miniature paintings, which he sold to the aristocracy. He had shows in the Royal Miniature Society galleries and at the prestigious Medici Gallery on Bond Street. In 1984, he became the first American elected to full membership in the Royal Miniature Society.
Easley then moved to Venice, Italy, and began painting large-scale cityscapes using glazed oil, a technique he learn through studying the works of Canaletto and Guardi. He also developed a pencil, chalk and watercolor style for painting female nudes on paper. His works were purchased by serious art collectors across Europe and America, including the Prince and Princes of Wales, The Ciga Hotels group, Villeroy and Boch, Harry’s Bar, English playwright Alan Ayckbourn and Thomas Hoving, long time director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In 1988, Easley moved to India, a country gloriously laden with rich colors and an ancient culture that enthralled every aspect of his creative interests. He began painting Indian subjects in oil and developed a new style of surrealism called “dimensional realism.” The style arose from Easley’s need to establish a visual reference for some of what he learned from years of studying antediluvian knowledge systems.
From India, and following several insightful meetings with the Dalai Lama he returned to set up base in Italy, and then traveled to Spain, Turkey, Greece and France, all of which influenced his art.
In the early 1990s, he had a series of shows in the United States and England, including (in London), the Victoria and Albert Museum, Dunhill and Asprey’s Gold Room, Vassar College in New York, the Londra Palace Venice, and the Genesis Gallery in Calcutta, India.
In 1997, Easley returned to the locality of his childhood: Lake Tahoe in the high Sierras. He began painting forest scenes and grand vista landscapes in oil. In 1999, after retiring quite late one night, he was awakened by an image of the sun setting on a distant peak, having exhausted his supply of wood panels Easley pulled out the plywood from under his bed and using palette knives, painted his first “extreme impressionist” image – Power Mountain 1.
From that point in time, Thomas has devoted himself to what he labels “Extreme Impressionism”, encompassing Wine Still-Life’s, Roosters, and occasionally Female Nudes. It is his own style for which he uses acrylic on board to create rich, vibrant images that are bold and life affirming. Like many great artists, his art continues to evolve yet his interest in classical art remains.
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