In the [WA] Emergence Gallery

Animals, Narratives and Portraits

Works by Tony Collias

June 15th-25th 2012

Reception: June 15th 2012, 6-9pm

Mr. Collias graduated college in 1996 with a degree in Literature. A year after graduating Collias decided to move from Michigan to Chicago.

” It was in Chicago that he became more serious about painting. I painted in a few very small apartments and after awhile decided to rent and share a larger studio space with a friend.”

“I worked a job at night, and would paint from early morning to mid afternoon until I had to go to work. At my job I had access to an art history library. It was in that library I feel I received my painting education. The vast array of books about different painters helped give me ideas about forming a language of my own with paint.”

“I exhibited my work at a few places in Chicago, but mainly kept my focus on making paintings, and teaching myself as much as I could about the craft.”

After about 5 years in Chicago Collias moved back home to Michigan, where he has been painting for the last 10 years trying hard to produce images that he has envisioned.

Praise from Real Detroit Weekly:

“Tony Collias creates vivid and colorful portraits drawn from nature and from the everyday world.”- RDW