Concetta Antico has returned to La Jolla with a new studio and will open the exhibit “Modern Muse” May 17 to further reveal her creativity.
Having wielded a paintbrush for 60 years, artist Concetta Antico knew she was uniquely talented, but it wasn’t until 2012 she had a scientific reason for it. For Antico, painting isn’t just a passion; it’s a calling to share her colorful worldview with others.
Antico, whose gallery The Salon of Art recently returned to La Jolla after a few years’ hiatus, will open the exhibition “A Modern Muse” Saturday, May 17 to further reveal her journey through color, creativity and spiritual connection.
The Australian-born Antico first opened a La Jolla studio in 1995 in Bird Rock, painting and teaching in her community, bringing fine art classes to the San Diego YMCAs, school programs and more.
In the 30 years since, she’s taught more than 25,000 people how to paint, she said.
“It all started with me sitting at La Jolla Cove one day … and watching the tourist buses pull up and watching people get off, watching them walk around for maybe five minutes, and get back on the bus,” Antico said.
She realized “they didn’t see anything.”
That revelation led her to start “Art Tours,” the company that evolved into “The Salon of Art” and began with an outdoor painting program for visitors to create their own souvenir paintings.
Today, The Salon of Art Gallery allows Antico to continue her vision to teach and incorporate all she’s learned about the world and color; the space is divided into three parts: a gallery displaying her paintings of nature through kaleidoscopic brushwork, a teaching studio and a tarot reading room.
“I’m looking to bring something different to the area,” she said, “a little bit more of a communal, creative [concept], very different from … a fairly austere gallery experience.”
Antico herself is very different, she said, and didn’t have a name for it until 2012, when she realized she has tetrachromacy, a rare genetic mutation that allows her to see up to 100 million more colors than the average person.
“My students would often say they couldn’t see some of the colors that I was seeing,” she said, but it wasn’t until a series of events that included being given an article about fourth receptors and eye color cones, a casual conversation with a neurologist and a visit with color vision specialists at UC Irvine did she have a name for her condition.
The UC Irvine specialists included Antico in a 2016 study, making her the world’s only known tetrachromatic artist.
“I am the only artist who can see the way that I can that has been scientifically endorsed,” she said.
Typically, people can detect up to 1 million colors but most don’t cultivate that sense either, Antico said.
She works through her classes and community interactions to help people develop their abilities to detect and appreciate more colors, believing when she teaches people, “they start to see the world very differently.”
Antico also translates her tetrachromacy into her paintings, so we can experience what she sees.
“Color really matters,” she said. “Color drives a lot of things, it drives emotion, it drives purchases, it’s more important than I think most people realize.”
Antico’s ability to perceive colors and coach others to see more leads naturally into her tarot card, life coaching and other “visionary services,” she said.
“Creativity and spirituality go together,” Antico said, noting her paintings are “all created in one sitting with no correction.”
Art “should be fun,” she said. “We should be having a good time while we’re here.”
To register for the free reception for “A Modern Muse,” click here. Five percent of all fine art sales from the event will be donated to Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego.
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