Eager to draw from life and his vivid imagination, Gary Persello has been rendering and modeling on the drawing pad and in sculpture since early childhood. Preferring drawing and painting lessons to sports and other boyish endeavors he began working with pencils, acrylics, oil pastels and paints, striving to emulate his heroes, comic book artists. Printing fifty issues of his own comic book complete with script and main character, by age twelve he was soon designing silk screen logos for local radio stations and his own comic characters were printed on a line of T-shirts by the age of sixteen. With several oil paintings already commissioned to him, Gary graduated with an Associate degree in Commercial Art at seventeen.

Gary Persello’s formal fine arts education continued at Kent State University in Ohio, not far from his hometown. He then went on to graduate with honors from the Pittsburgh Art Institute majoring in visual communications with strong emphasis on sculptural special effects. Here, he started modeling dragons, griffins and other mythic creatures from wax, oil clay, plaster, and paper mache. He also developed a special interest in creating latex masks after taking a class teaching the basics from casting life masks to finishing the latex mask with airbrushed paint. Today Gary Persello continues to dabble in creating masks and teaching the process to friends and family.

Persello spent the next ten years evolving into the competent and creative bronze sculptor that he is today. His work emulates a caliber of excellence in artistry and craftsmanship rarely found in contemporary bronze sculpture. Gary Persello takes special pride in being directly involved in all stages of casting a bronze from his original oil clay sculpture. He became quite knowledgeable from the ten years of hands on experience working in a foundry with over a hundred artists and sculptors from such diverse genres as western art to abstract expressionism. He has personally assisted on over twenty monuments, from initial clay modeling and scaling up, to finished patinaed bronze. During this time he applied his painting background to his unique patina style earning the title of "Master Patineur." Gary feels the rich colors add a palpable depth to his work, "full color patinas elevate the illusion of mythic reality one step further."

In recent years he has been fortunate to be recognized for his efforts with several honorable awards. In 1991, he won best of show winning" Peer Choice" at the Sedona National Sculpture Walk in Arizona. In 1992 he placed "First" and "Best of Show" in the Science Fiction Westercon held in Phoenix, Arizona. Later that year he also placed "First" for best three-dimensional work at theWorld Fantasy Art Show in Georgia. From participating in that show, he was nominated in 1993 for a "Chesley Award" from the American Science Fiction artists for "Best 3-D," and won!

Creating fantastic and mythic works have been and will continue to be a lifelong love and commitment for Gary, providing years to express his beautiful images through sculpture. Gary Persello believes that, "When creating sculpture, the joy is in translating imagery from my mind's eye into three dimensional reality. It's an intriguing challenge to project a dynamic two- dimensional graphic image outward visually into three dimensions. That challenge fuels my imagination and inspires me daily!"