The sea does not stay in one place. It rises, remembers, returns. This mural was painted as a tidal field of gesture and color — an attempt to let the surface breathe like water.Inspired by the oceanic poetry of Pablo Neruda (Chilean poet-diplomat, 1904 – 1973) and the endless language of the sea.
Anthony Pontrello (Italo-American, b. 1950)
El Mar (The Sea)
“I need the sea because it teaches me.” ~ Pablo Neruda — El Mar (The Sea)
12 x 5 ft. (365.7 x 152.4 cm)
mixed media on canvas
signed, bottom, right, “Anthony Pontrello 2026”
mural installation
“This mural was created as a meditation on tide, memory, and the restless dialogue between sea and land. Working at a scale large enough to move the body as well as the brush, I allowed gesture and gravity to participate in the painting—paint running, pooling, circling back upon itself like water returning to shore.
This artwork draws inspiration from the oceanic language of Pablo Neruda, whose poems treat the sea not merely as landscape but as a living archive of time, longing, and human presence. In this mural, the blue forms rise like tidal breaths across the surface while lines drift and wander as if carried by unseen currents.
Fragments of color—violet, ochre, green, and earth—emerge like marine life or submerged memory beneath the moving water. Nothing is fixed. Everything is in passage.
The painting becomes a shoreline of gestures: a place where sky, water, and memory meet.” ~AP
The sea does not stay in one place. It rises, remembers, returns. This mural was painted as a tidal field of gesture and color — an attempt to let the surface breathe like water.Inspired by the oceanic poetry of Pablo Neruda (Chilean poet-diplomat, 1904 – 1973) and the endless language of the sea.
Anthony Pontrello (Italo-American, b. 1950)
El Mar (The Sea)
“I need the sea because it teaches me.” ~ Pablo Neruda — El Mar (The Sea)
12 x 5 ft. (365.7 x 152.4 cm)
mixed media on canvas
signed, bottom, right, “Anthony Pontrello 2026”
mural installation
“This mural was created as a meditation on tide, memory, and the restless dialogue between sea and land. Working at a scale large enough to move the body as well as the brush, I allowed gesture and gravity to participate in the painting—paint running, pooling, circling back upon itself like water returning to shore.
This artwork draws inspiration from the oceanic language of Pablo Neruda, whose poems treat the sea not merely as landscape but as a living archive of time, longing, and human presence. In this mural, the blue forms rise like tidal breaths across the surface while lines drift and wander as if carried by unseen currents.
Fragments of color—violet, ochre, green, and earth—emerge like marine life or submerged memory beneath the moving water. Nothing is fixed. Everything is in passage.
The painting becomes a shoreline of gestures: a place where sky, water, and memory meet.” ~AP