Upper St. Clair artist’s work featured in Gallery Crawl
By day, Francis Cleetus puts his artistic talents to work for Mylan Inc. at Southpointe.
“It’s right up my alley,” the Upper St. Clair resident and career advertising practitioner said. “But when you go home, you need something to do for your soul.”
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Francis Cleetus of Upper St. Clair also is a cartoonist, producing the tech-oriented “It’s Geek 2 Me.”
And so he channels his artistry into painting, drawing and sculpting, the results of which will be on display for “Karmalogue,” his exhibit that opens at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 26 as part of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s quarterly multi-venue Gallery Crawl. Visitors to the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, 810 Penn Ave., can see what Cleetus has been working on when he’s not in his Southpointe office.
“I actually happened to collect a body of work, finally,” he said. “I’m trying to evolve my style, as well. You get inspired by so many people, so many masters out there, so many local artists, and you want to try to distill all of that and try to get your own style.”
His influences extend from his native India to Hong Kong, where he lived and worked for nine years, to the United States for the past 18.
“The Birth of Pinocchio” features a football-shaped piece of wood.
“It’s basically a collection of experiences from these three countries,” he explained.
For example, India’s vast Thar Desert provides the backdrop for Cleetus’ painting “Intrusion,” which shows that he understands the other side of the advertising field.
“You look at this really beautiful landscape, with sunsets and sunrises,” he said about the idyllic scene on the left half. “And then somebody puts a billboard in and ruins it.”
An example of Francis Cleetus’ pen-and-ink creations
Closer to what has been home for almost a decade, he looks for interesting pieces of wood along Pittsburgh’s rivers as artistic elements. He once found one that the water had formed into the shape of the football, and he sculpted it into what became “The Birth of Pinocchio,” with the oft-long-nosed wooden puppet emerging from the middle.
Speaking of noses, Cleetus likes to work in three dimensions, and a portrait subject’s proboscis might protrude from the surface, complete with a nose ring.
“I like vibrant colors,” he said about his favorite scheme. “Life is tough, as it is, for all of us. I like to put in some color.”
He also works in black-and-white with a series of pen-and-ink drawings depicting his impressions of everyone from his school-principal grandfather and the priest who performed his wedding ceremony in New Delhi to a geisha he saw on a train in Tokyo and a “super-efficient secretary” with the company he worked for in Hong Kong.
“Karmalogue” marks Cleetus’ first Pittsburgh exhibit. He displayed his work last year in Louisville, Ky., as part of a show by the Asia Institute-Crane House, Inc.
Antara Cleetus’ award-winning “The Third Eye”
His talents have extended to his daughter Antara, an Upper St. Clair High School student. At age 11, while at Boyce Middle School, she was recipient of the 2014 Young Artist Award at the Arts Education Partnership National Forum in Pittsburgh for her India-influenced painting “The Third Eye.” The same year, she received the statewide PTA Reflections Award.
For more information about the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Gallery Crawl, visit crawl.trustarts.org.