Art of Don DeLeva

  Open Sesame Gallery ’s " Sketchbook Standout " Exhibition Premieres at Tacoma Public Library. TACOMA, WA.  October 4, 2025 – December 2025  -  Open Sesame Gallery, in collaboration with the Tacoma Public Library (TPL), is proud to announce the opening of  "Sketchbook Standout,"  a major group exhibition premiering at the  Handforth Gallery  as part of TPL’s "Kaleidoscope" rotating series.

The Ghost Gallery 19th Annual Holiday Mini Art Exhibit!  Nov-Jan 2025.     IRL gallery and URL exhibition. https://ghostgallery.org/collections/the-19th-annual-holiday-mini-art-exhibit Link to page:   Page 6. Curator: Laurie Kearney   Gallery Information:   600 Pine St Suite 253 (inside Pacific Place)Seattle WA 98101 Wed-Sat 12-7pm Sun 12-5pm // Mon-Tue by Appt curator@ghostgalleryshop.com 5 On exhibition We Are Born Into This,  oil on panel, 4x4, $140 Tamp, oil on panel,  oil on panel, 4x4, $160 Jerry Is A Punker, oil on panel, 4x4, $140 Electrohead, oil on panel, 4x4, $140 Compartments, oil on panel, 4x4, $140

  Frank Slam Dancing: XXIX . VII . MMXXV Graphite on Masonite, Oil Gesso,  This work has a combination of dry graphite from pencil and oil graphite from Williamsburg Graphite oil paint. 

  The Transmogrification of Hal Benningforth on his walk to the Substation Seattle upon applying his first ear plug . You dashing stranger with one ear plug, where is the second? I swallowed the second. What ? Yeah, I have a habit of chewing on them. It's something about the orange foam 😋. #DonDelevaart ,  #Kitticus5 ,  #chimera ,  #electroholic ,  #cyberplastica ,   #cybergoth ,  #dondeleva ,   #goth ,  #postpunk ,   #seattleartfair ,  #seattle ,  #NorthWestUnderground ,  #Fantagraphics ,  #UniversityOfThePacific ,  #roqlarue   #alexandermcqueen ,  #SubstationSeattle ,  #sunn0 )),  #BradleyUnivercity ,  #Deleva   #ArtCollection  ,  #PortraitPainter ,   #NoiseMusicSeattle   #spk ,  #40mhz

This isn't a mission for the faint of heart. This is a consistent dedication of sacrifice,  an offering to all those who never knew you offered it.

Moxxz, drawing, 4"x6" There is a difference between finding oneself in an action or practice rather then the realization of a hollow persona failing as a practitioner.  Some act as the lion, goat and snake and some are the Chimera with no realization of it. Failing means you won at completing the task.

Currently three paintings are in progress. Two of them started at least a year ago and the one in this post started about a month ago. This post is devoted to the painting that started one month ago. The working title of this painting is American Goth . Titles change as the piece progresses sometimes. Titles come after the work is complete. Sometimes streams of consciousness offer the title and the works context.    The first photos are some what near the inception. 1. 2. 3. The painting has been flipped. I start to see a direction that feels correct.  4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Thank you for visiting this page.  

  This is a work in progress. The original finished painting was sanded out, named Griffin. It was shown at the Confluence Gallery in my first solo show, entitled  Techina 2022.   

   Kittycus 5 : Drawing, graphite on HP WCP, June 2025.  Schrodinger's cat before he was the inspiration of Schrodinger's.  ORIGINAL ART Price: $60.00

Lately, I have noticed how often I go to art history for answers to problems that I haven't solved yet while working. This morning I was studying a Todd Schorr  painting that I had been looking at the night before.  Go to:   https://toddschorr.com/    he is a master!!!!!!!  The painting was: The Riddle Of The Magician's  Bunny Trick Solved Through The Use of Squared Off Angles. (Wow, imagine that! A cubist painting? Yeah, well what else would stop me in my tracks?) I have such a habit of finding answers back in art history. My 7 years of  higher education, encouraged me not to "Reinvent the wheel". However...the wheels of the 21st century have anti-locking disk breaks and rotation tracking tires, besides metal alloy wheels...  Or maybe it was me learning how Todd Schorr solved the problem so I could reinterpret it, disassemble the steps, and build a new tool for my tool box rather then poorly quote Todd Schorr and embarrass myself......

Only the best! Painting with natural, metal, earth, pigments, for me feels as if I am moving and folding elemental reality at a microscopic level.

Tics are like the passing of time and the electrified energy of air and the particles we are made of. 

Messenger: graphite on hot press watercolor paper, 4x6. 6/18/2025. Drawing. 

Camero and the Triple A Battery  Some people are crowded landscapes with ambition in mind to stake there claim on this world.

I paint portraits in abstract form for people who realize humans are abstract personalities. -Don DeLeva

 I am told the LHC smashes particles together to find new ones and to understand how a "Big Bang " may have taken place. In one way I am not really concerned weather I am right or not about the purpose of the LHC, although I might find out I am utterly wrong about the purpose of the LHC.  What attracts me to the LHC is more about the side effects of smashing particles particles together and how many universes we bring in to existence and destroy during these smashing sessions.  Think about this, history repeats itself. What if human animals are just a force of nature,, like weather, that creates universes not only in thought but in physicality. Placing particles of minerals, metals and dyes in arrangements on wood panels for me is a way of creating a universe. Once you whitens it or you assign your own icons to the images if images are fabricated or hinted at. Enough for now, time to paint.  

Sometimes i just get ahead of myself. I forgot about the work and just get so involved with trying to find a place to show.  These last 2 month have been about getting my website in functional order. These last 2 years of fortune with two solos at Confluence and disrupting life changes have kept me focused on the basics of maintaining the every day. The heartbreakers for me have been the possible opportunities I had to back down from. The funny part is that I am not sure if these opportunities were fabricated by my own delusions or vague innuendos of reality.   I am happy to say that the last few years of trying to slow down time and listen to the moment has been really good for me.  Diving in to isolation and trying to control my own interpretation of time and control bring me far deeper rewards then any list of exhibitions. I can only be a message in a bottle or one weed that grows in the middle of the freeway on a rock in a infinite universe that offers each of us...

Yellow Camero: 4"x6", oil on panel. 7-6-2023    I am kind of feeling a direction. these small paintings are coming out so fast. Currently, I am  painting with a turp + sun thick + cold press medium. It dries fast like overnight. I add cold press and damar as the painting progresses, in a fat over lean fashion. This mixture is very thin and blend ability of brush strokes is limited. it is almost best for drawing and scrubbing. However the sun thickened linseed oil is good but it's more about drying then getting a reflective pool of graduated color like stand oil does.  I'm telling you this because I have been thinking about a sunthick +  stand oil + turps mix. This should give me a full body, blend able medium that dries faster then just stand oil and turps. It will leave an enamel type finish and color.   

This is a Camero 4"x6" oil on panel. 2023bsai  This is the first of a suite of small paintings. It is called a Camero. Yes, it is like the car however it is spelled with an "e" instead of and "a". This is the first one.