Gene Costanza

Gene Costanza is a contemporary realist painter of traditional subject matter, focusing primarily on landscape.

Costanza orchestrates paintings that engage the viewer and invites them to enter his world. By capturing the light and atmosphere, the feel and smell, the wind and wave, he hopes to share places that mean something to him and the moments that evoke common feelings we share. One person summed it up with, “I love to watch your landscapes.” Task accomplished in that case.

Over twenty-five years of his life was spent in Law Enforcement in such specialties as SWAT, K9 Handler/K9 Supervisor, Patrol Supervisor and Detective. About mid-career, the desire to return to artistic endeavors surfaced after having been abandoned in his early twenties. Though dormant, there was a constant underlying desire to again delve into the mysteries of paint, light, and subject matter. Costanza believes it took a decade and a half of discipline to mold his personal tendencies so that he could study and work as hard as one needs to in the difficult endeavor of making a good painting. Costanza retired from law enforcement to become a full-time painter.

Avoiding the description of being “self-taught,” Gene has studied with a number of great contemporary artist/teachers including; Kevin McPhearson, Matt Smith, Jeffery A. Watt, Jill Carver and has a long-standing, close, personal as well as professional, friendship with Scott L. Christensen. It is Christensen whom Costanza credits with most of his growth. Frequently these two can be found painting, fishing, hunting or just enjoying the fellowship of intimate friendship.

His work is in collections from coast to coast and is included in the permanent collection of the Academy Museum in Easton, Maryland.

Costanza is married and has two grown sons and has made his home in Central Oregon since 2019.