Adriano Manocchia specializes in realistic paintings of fly-fishing, landscapes and golf. Flawless in his attention to detail and realism, Adriano's paintings appeal to the most discriminating sportsman. An avid fly-fisherman, he has a thorough understanding of his subjects. Born in 1951, Adriano Manocchia began his self-taught career in fine art in 1984 after leaving behind a highly successful career in photojournalism. An avid outdoorsman, he has concern for the nation’s deteriorating natural habitat, a subject that has inspired most of his subjects, which include colorful and light filled landscapes, waterscapes, sporting scenes and wildlife. Manocchia, a New Yorker who has been a full time painter for the last fourteen years, is perhaps best known for his fishing scenes. Adriano’s “waterscapes” are a joy to him, an affection that reflects in his life. "I love to be near water," he says. “I just feel reborn near water, whether it's a stream or the ocean. I love to paint water.” Increasingly, Manocchia is concentrating more on landscapes or waterscapes themselves. He is not entirely excluding the people or wild animals that inhabit his scenes; they are just growing smaller in what he considers to be their proper proportion. “More and more, the animal or subject is less important to me because I want to focus on composition and light, and the dynamics of color. I want to evoke an emotion." A member of the Society of Animal Artists, his work has been exhibited in prestigious venues throughout the country including the Easton Waterfowl Festival and the American Museum of Fly Fishing, . He has also produced works to benefit such conservation groups as Ducks Unlimited, the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the New York Audubon Society. On his trips (to the Western U.S. as well as Italy, the UK, and Canada), Manocchia tries to spend as much time outdoors as possible. "There's nothing like standing in a river and watching a moose cross, or watching a whitetail in the woods. I've spent more time outdoors in the last few years, and that's been a key factor in my increased understanding of light and landscape. Why was Carl Rungius so great? He lived out in the woods and understood the way light plays on an animal. The brain registers the experience and it'll show in a painting." At his easel, he applies techniques similar to those used by the Italian Renaissance masters he venerates: sketching in the scene, underpainting a thin wash of burnt sienna or raw umber, blocking out large shapes with solid colors, then adding finer details. It's a matter of honing, of slowly figuring out what really matters, what lasts; in this, too, his art reflects his life. It was the study of water, always different, challenging, and elusive, that inspired Adriano Manocchia. This connection to water coupled with a deep passion for fly-fishing resulted in his scenic pieces in which the fisherman is one important part of the whole, and yet the natural surrounding remains the painting’s focal point. Anglers appreciate not only the realistic beauty of Adriano’s works but also the nostalgia that each of his works captures. Likewise, collectors recognize Adriano’s unquestionable talent to capture a mood, and to create such realist works while also using bold, abstract brushstrokes.