Felice Mazzoni

Art

Painting

Location

Victoria, BC

Currently in the Gallery

About the Artist

“A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.” – Miles Davis

Realist landscape oil-painter Felice Mazzoni lives in Victoria, British Columbia and has spent his entire life on Vancouver Island. West Coast beaches, sunsets, ocean and forest landscapes are all brought to life through Felice’s use of intricate detail and manipulation of light. With contrasting and harmonious colours and bold compositions, including monochromatic works, Felice captures the essence and feeling of the West Coast in every painting.

Felice was educated and formally trained as a community planner and started his first career when he was twenty-one years old, including planning for the town of Ucluelet before moving to Victoria to start his own consulting company. His award-winning sustainable planning initiatives have been locally, nationally and internationally recognized.

As an emerging artist, Felice’s inspiration to start painting came from his love for Van Gogh paintings, being attracted to the whimsical and colourful nature of the French countryside. He painted during the evenings and weekends, as it helped focus his mind and fill his heart. His first landscape paintings were gifts for friends, as well as his daughter Bella, and his sons, Domenic, Luciano and Remy. Felice would often cycle through multiple paintings at a time from his small dining room table in his home, late at night, moving from rainforest to sandy beaches to Pacific Ocean, and was quickly self-taught about all things oil. Tofino-born and Ucluelet-raised, Felice gravitated towards west coast landscapes having grown up and later working in Ucluelet. He takes his inspiration from locals such as photographer Kelly Feltis, Ron Clayton and Wild Pacific Trail founder, “Oyster” Jim Martin. His love for the west coast is transferred from brush to canvas and the emotions Felice still has for his home town are invoked through his work. By mixing colors, layering, and through intricate detail, his oil paintings have often been mistaken for photographs.

Felice is now embracing his hidden talent, selling pieces locally as well as internationally to collectors from New York to San Francisco. Felice had his first exclusive art exhibit at The Cabins at Terrace Beach in 2021, a group exhibit at the Tofino Gallery of Contemporary Art in 2022, and a solo exhibit at the MacMillan Arts Centre in 2023. Felice’s home and heart will always be in Ucluelet.