Bruno Surdo

Connection - Blue Portrait - Original oil painting by Bruno Surdo

2026

In Daydreamer, Bruno Surdo creates a quietly enigmatic portrait that blurs the boundaries between identity and imagination. Rendered in a cool, luminous palette of blues, the subject...

This painting reveals Bruno Surdo’s fluency in merging Renaissance figure painting with Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite sensibilities. A young woman lies nestled in a field of daisies, wrapped in soft drapery and cradling a red book to her chest, while a monarch butterfly hovers near her hand. The composition recalls the reclining female figures of Titian and Giorgione, yet the setting shifts from mythological landscape to an immersive, almost Edenic field of flowers. Surdo’s atelier training is evident in the sculptural modeling of the body and the careful handling of light across skin and fabric. The figure possesses the volumetric presence of High Renaissance painting, yet she is embedded in a richly detailed natural environment that feels intimate rather than grand. Art historically, the work resonates strongly with the Pre-Raphaelites—particularly artists like John Everett Millais and John William Waterhouse—whose depictions of women in lush floral settings combined realism with poetic symbolism. The daisies traditionally symbolize innocence and purity, while the butterfly evokes transformation, the soul, and ephemerality—motifs frequently explored in Symbolist painting. The red book introduces narrative ambiguity: knowledge, memory, or interior life held protectively against the body. Unlike Surdo’s more theatrical mythological or urban allegories, this composition feels contemplative and inward. Yet it still aligns with his broader practice of grounding contemporary psychological states in the language of art history. The painting becomes a meditation on introspection, metamorphosis, and the quiet tension between innocence and awakening, rendered with the authority of classical draftsmanship and layered with 19th-century poetic symbolism. Bruno Surdo Connected Souls oil on canvas 24h x 36w in 60.96h x 91.44w cm BRS124 Bruno A. Surdo b. Chicago, 1963 EXHIBITIONS 2023 New Work, Gallery VICTOR, Chicago, IL 2021 Ethos + Truth, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2020 Realities, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2018 Liberation, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Blood Sport, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Art on Paper 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Pier 36, New York, NY SOFA Chicago 2018, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL 2017 POP!ARAZZI, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL Coming Attractions, Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL 2015 SOFA Chicago 2015, Ann Nathan Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Allegories, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2014 Bruno Surdo: Respond, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Modern Metaphors, Rockford Art Museum, Rockford, IL 2013 Bruno Surdo: Revelations, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Vice + Virtue, Northern Illinois University Museum of Art 2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN 2011 Bruno Surdo, University of St. Francis School of Creative Arts, Fort Wayne, IN Uncensored, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2010 Art Chicago 2010, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2009 Art Chicago 2009, Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 2007 Bruno Surdo, Art Institute of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN 2006 Context/Content: Making Meaning with the Figure, University of Arkansas, Conway, AR Creative Imaginings, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL Bruno Surdo: Cycles, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2005 Art Chicago 2005, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2004 Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2004, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Group Show, Arcadia Gallery, New York, NY Drawings VII, Koplin Del Rio Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Armory Show, New York Armory, New York, NY 2003 Paintings & Drawings, College of Lake County, Grayslake, IL The Art Show, New York, NY Bruno Surdo: New Work, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2003, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2003-10 International Show of Contemporary Artists, Chicago Art Open, Chicago, IL 2002 Bruno Surdo: Perception of Appearance, Frye Museum, Seattle, WA Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Richard M. Daley Center, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Transcendence, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Art Chicago 2002, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL Tragedy, Memory, & Honor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR 1998 Evanston and Vicinity Artists, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL 1996 Bruno Surdo: A Personal View, University of Wisconsin, Kenosha, WI 1995 Bruno Surdo: Recent Works, College of Lake County, IL AIDS in Our Society, Loyola University, Chicago, IL Bruno Surdo: Life, Struggle, and Hope, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL 2001 Magic Vision, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR Bruno Surdo: Dualities of Life, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1999 Group Show, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, IL 1998 Group Exhibition, Fine Arts Building Gallery, Chicago, IL 1995 Spiritual Inquiries, Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL 1994 Recent Works, The 14th Annual Juried Exhibition for Lake County Artists, Grayslake, IL Go Figure, Figurative Works on Paper, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Chicago, IL SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Re-Birth of Venus, Temporary Loan, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR College of Lake County, Greyslake, IL Flashpoint Academy, Chicago IL John Robert Wiltgen Design Shoemaker Ruud Collection Julie & Thomas Danilek Michael Vozzella and Mike Silver Benjamin Fernandez Tom Braake Betsy Colburn Michael Diemand & Lor LaRose Michael Staab & Kathy Brock Bruce Leep Frank Tzurect Mary Foley Rosalyn Carlson Mimmy Turney Janet Long Halstead Billy Hunt Carol Galli Myles Kerrigan Honorable & Mrs. Edwin Berman Theodore Gage Northrop Art Museum Past Present & Future Company Dr. James & Peggy Kemmler Salvatore Monastero Nix & Virginia Lauridsen Joel Miller David & Marlene Zerkel Ann & Andy Abel Claudia Rush Marc Miller Leonard Goldberg Lawrence Pucci Howard Tullman Collection Susan & Manny Kramer James Rinnert Richar Interiors Michael & Nancy Colt Khalid Altijir Dr. Joe Grodman Beryl & Jack Gore Larry Wolf & Eric Naegle Chuck Wolandi Jack Schwab & David Sandelin Thomas Kaczmarek Marti Dinerstein Craig & Michael Golden Mike & Jill Rose SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Bruno Surdo: The Method Artist Responds, by Lucia Mauro, June 26, 2014, anitathemovie blog An Exhibition of Exhibitionism: Bruno Surdo’s ‘Respond’, by Carrie McGath, July 1, 2014, The Chicagoist Website, Arts and Entertainment “Inspired Environs: A renowned designer decks out his Loop abode in art and texture” Modern Luxury, Men’s Book, Spring 2014 “Master Class” What’z Up Magazine, Fort Wayne, 2011 ”9/11 Painting will be on Display” Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, 2011 “Illuminated Images” Fort Wayne Reader, 2011 “Two Faces of Beauty” American Art Collector Magazine, Issue #3 and #59, 2006/2010 “Art and Calamity” Art Papers, 2009 “Versions of the Present, Techniques of the Past” American Artist Magazine, 2004 “Living Artists” Crow Book Publishing, Chicago, IL 2004 “The New Master” by Craig Keller, Chicago Social Magazine, 2004. “Tragedy, Memory, and Honor,” by William Hageman, Chicago Tribune, March 28, 2002 “Mural Depicts Tragedy of 9/11” Art Section, Chicago Sun Times, 2002 Review by Dennis Raverty, Art Papers Magazine, July 2001 WTTW Channel 11...

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