Mario B. Simic – Poet of Land and Sea

A modern master of brushstrokes, light, and translucent color, Mario Simic has been a lover of the arts since he was six years of age and discovered his own talent in kindergarten. He creates his original paintings with a flair for tradition and a heart brimming with an appreciation for the painterly artists that created the pathway he chose to tread.

As a child, he was inspired by western culture, and after watching hundreds of western movies, he dreamed that he would someday come to America. When Mario departed his native Yugoslavia in 1968 to go to Paris, France, he was confident that he was just passing through on his way to America and hoped that he would fulfill his wish “to settle in magnificent California,” he recalls. In time, that wish did come true, allowing him to discover the Pacific Ocean and a beautiful coastline that was to become the main subject and inspiration for many of his paintings. Bonding with nature, while befriending appreciative admirers of art was going to be his destiny. To “become a worthy member of a great society while engaged in painting nature and beauty found all around us was a fulfillment of that destiny,” he states.

Here’s a bit more historical detail: It was eighteen years after his birth that he made that departure from his homeland to join his brother and his father in the famous ‘city of lights’ where he was immediately enamored with the Parisian influence he discovered in architecture, artistry, and style. “Paris, to me, was a magnificent work of art,” he recalls with relish.

Still enamored with his dream though, Mario pursued his goal to emigrate to the New World and make the United States of America his adopted country. “After my arrival in San Francisco, I knew that I had found my new home,” he says. Without looking back he industriously took to the dual tasks of being both a painter and a passionate gallerist, operating throughout California and Arizona, eventually gaining a reputation of renown for his gifted accomplishment in both roles.

Motivated by nature itself and by the layered talents and influences of such artists as Eugene Garin, James Fetherolf, Alexander Dzigurski, Ivan Ivazovski, and Albert Bierstadt, as well as the extraordinary palettes of the Hudson River School of Artists, he eagerly advanced his personal techniques. Through exercising and polishing his own capacities, Mario created sought-after original paintings, and as a crowning achievement garnered a selection of other distinguished artists to represent in his galleries.

One evidence of Mario Simic’s commitment to his art is readily seen in his dedication to stylistically perfecting his creation of the wave action observed in coastal and deep sea waters. His work over the years incorporates curling, breaking, and crashing waves in many forms, in various lighting conditions, and in a pattern that leads us to recognize that this element, whether intended or not, has become a signature statement within a grand body of work.

Through fifty years of devotion, Mario Simic has earned the reputation of delivering surpassing excellence while infusing the spirit of his collectors with a kind of vitality and animation that, apart from that which the natural world provides, is nearly always supplied by exceptional art. He continues to explore this magnificent country and create paintings reflecting his vision of “America the Beautiful,” maintaining a goal to capture views and some of the glory from all fifty of the United States.

Simic Galleries operate today in the established art communities of La Jolla, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona, still providing Mario Simic’s original works along with select limited edition giclees from Simic and a stable of other accomplished painters. An introduction to the Mario Simic collection is also proffered by a presence online at simicgalleries.com.