Mario Pikus :

Mario Pikus, painter and sculptor, was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He began to paint at a very early age, and by 8 years old he attended Galleria Picasso, a studio gallery that encouraged children to be their own free spirit in their artistic expression. In this Galleria that played Beethoven music, Mario discovered his inner spirit and began to express it through his paint brush and oil paints.

By his teen years, he was participating in group shows and painting commissioned murals in Buenos Aires. Mario later traveled to New York City, where he met the renowned sculptor, Jacques Lipchitz. Through Lipchitz, Mario met his most significant collectors, Lester Avnet and William Mazer. Although these famous collectors subsidized grants for Mario to attend the New York Art Studio, he branched out from its structure and continued to be self-taught, painting and sketching from the Old Masters and the European schools, refining his own unique style of artwork.

From his artist’s studio in New York, Mario became an activist in fighting for the legal rights of artists to both work and live in their loft spaces. He was involved in court battles for many years, but victoriously was responsible for case law and legislation that protected thousands of artists from eviction. This protracted struggle for the artists’ homes resulted in one of the largest of his exhibitions held in Soho,
entitled “Pictures of an Eviction”.

Currently residing in California, Mario Pikus brings to his work today his unique bursts of color, emotion and intensity. His artwork engages the viewer into an immediate emotional response and experience. His most recent oil paintings and sculptures combine with innovation, discipline and freedom the elements found in
Expressionism, Surrealism and Cubism. In addition, Mario has completed many commissioned paintings for collectors and celebrities.Mario is presently the innovator of a new sculpture artform, called “Harley-ism”. His unique metal sculptures are created from discarded Harley Davidson motorcycle parts, such as fenders, tanks, chrome pipes and handle bars. Each sculpture, rather than being welded, is bolted together by the artist to create perfect balance of weight and form. The finished pieces, however, are not sculptures of motorcycles; they are abstract versions of musicians and other persona, with satirical titles such as “The Biker Blues”, “Biker-Saurus”, and “Born to be Wild”. “The same freedom that I feel when riding my Harley on the open road is what I want to convey in my sculptures – I want to represent freedom of form and movement."

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