Aaron Pavelis is a realist oil painter whose work is inspired by the Dutch, French and Russian classical traditions. He draws from a wide spectrum of techniques that nurture his visual language.
An artist since childhood, Aaron began his early professional training at Interlochen Academy in Michigan, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in Milwaukee, and Lyme Academy in Connecticut, followed by instruction in landscape painting with professors from Moscow’s Surikov Institute of Art, from whom he learned the color theories of Russian Impressionism. He studied classical Russian figure drawing with Albert Epshtym of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Aaron received a grant from the Melton Foundation of the Arts to study in Italy at the Florence Academy of Art. Over a period of nearly six years he trained in this classical program, modeled after the French academic ateliers of the 19th century.
On returning to the U.S., he accepted portrait and landscape commissions in Virginia. In addition, his work was shown at the Grenning Gallery in New York, from where his painting Cello Solo was purchased by a private collector, and later displayed during a fundraiser for the Ithzak Perlman Music Program.
At the Art Museum of Los Gatos in California,
Aaron was a featured artist in the exhibition called Classical Portraiture: Three American Artists Trained in Florence. At this venue, museum audiences learned about Aaron’s commitment to “create from live observation as the impetus of poetic expression.”