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Patrick Kluga graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2001, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts  in Painting, Cum Laude. He works full time as a decorative contractor since 2004, involved in restoration  of historic buildings and creating custom decorative finishes, murals, and hand painted signs for  commercial and residential clients. He lives and works from his studio in Towson, Maryland. 

In my paintings, I am interested in more contemporary representational approaches to rendering the  subjects which I paint. I alternate between working from life and photography, whichever method suits  the aim, in the end, of capturing what I see into the medium of oil on canvas. 

In working from life, I set up still life arrangements in the studio based off of food subjects and modern  objects and arrangements, and thinking about the compositions of such still life painters as Jean Baptiste  Simeon Chardin, as well as more contemporary influences. 

I also began painting desserts and cakes several years ago from photography, and I then began painting  ice cream cones from photographs I had taken. I find these paintings to be euphoric and visceral, while  activating a carefree visual experience. I enjoy painting the light as it moves across the forms, the  glistening, frosty, dripping caverns created by the cones. I consider these subjects halfway between the  landscape and the portrait. 

My other works explore contemporary imagery filtered into a painterly language. I use gathered photo  references such as polaroid photos, with their deeply expressive contrasts of black and white. I also  have been fascinated by the painterly pinups of Gil Elvgren, in which I transpose the crisp edged figures  upon a graffiti like surface to create arresting contrasts between imagery of different generations. 

In my mind, painting remains elevated beyond other forms of imagery that bombard our attention on a  daily basis. The handmade quality of the painted surface, the sense of timelessness in a painted scene,  and the relationship created between the creator, subject and the viewer of the artwork are qualities  which continue to inspire.