About Gio Liberino:

     Gio Libertino, born John Philip Libertino, is an American artist known mostly for his oilcolour paintings but who works also in encaustic, watercolour, pastel and pencil (works in other disciplines/media include clay sculpture, ceramics, metal working, metal smithing, glass blowing, etc.).

    Early Life Education & Art:

     Libertino grew up in Wellesley, MA, U.S.A. where he realised his desire to be an artist at the age of 13. After graduating from Wellesley public schools, he began his college education at Harvard College in Cambridge, MA. Formally transferring  to Columbia College in the City of New York after a year at Harvard, he graduated with a BA in History of Art and Architecture. He immediately entered the Rhode Island School of Design where he studied painting for two years in Providence RI and spent his third year painting in Rome, Italy as a part of the R. I. S. of D. European Honors Program. He graduated with a BFA in Painting. During this period he began his exploration into the use of various atypical materials used in conjunction with traditional means and media.

     Early Career - Paris & New York City:
     In 1996, Libertino travelled to live and paint in Paris, France and was immediately discouraged by the nature of the gallery system and disappointed by his discovery of the ameritorious manner of selecting artists based upon pedigree rather than quality of artwork. Encouraged by a solo exposition exhibited in a Rue Bonaparte antique shop, where the space had been leant out to an artist on weekends by the proprietor, Libertino began to seek alternatives to the gallery as a means of promotion, exposition and sales. In this manner he was able to circumvent the traditional gallery system and sell his work privately, on his own. 

    Llack of immediate success in Paris forced him to leave less than six months after his arrival. He returned to New York City where, after finding the nature of the gallery system to be universal, he began using private spaces and independent means of invitation to successfully show and sell his work. Most of the work from this period is traditional, figurative painting and drawing in the form of still life, landscape, figure and portraiture. 

     Work from this period  ranges stylistically from the Baroque to Impressionistic and relies upon both traditional Renaissance (glazing) techniques and more modern alla prima (body painting) techniques, sometimes fusing the two in unique ways.While much of the work is done with traditional methods and materials, this period also involves a more significant degreet of experimentation with various atypical media, such as painting in oil on pigmented plaster ground onto canvas or burlap, or employing bitumen as a paint medium. 

     Mid Career - Budapest & New York  City:

     In 2001, due to unfortunate living circumstances and an ever increasing rise in New York City cost of living, Libertino left New York City and moved to Budapest, Hungary to paint and write. Here, due to an unusually reasonable cost of living, he was able to both paint more and experiment more, consequently giving him greater freedom to develop more conceptually driven work.
     His 2004 a, series of works collectively entitled “Magyar Színek”  (a Hungarian working title having a double significance meaning either ‘Hungarian Scenes’ or ‘Hungarian Colours’) was met with much critical success and garnered attention as well as controversy. 

   Later that same year he met and married his wife and left Budapest to return to New York City. Once again, after further years of disappointment with the quality of art, the disingenuous and pretentious nature  of the New York art scene and an increasingly high cost of New York City living, he left the city.  

     In 2007 Libertino moved to Philadelphia where he currently works and lives (very happily) with his wife and daughter. He continues to produce work that is privately collected as well as commissioned portraiture.