By Nicole Meoli

You can tell by the canvas perched next to Riccardo Clementi’s stove that he is serious about painting.

“Sometimes when I cook, I’ll add a few strokes to the painting. You know, while I am waiting for something to finish cooking,” said Clementi.

Though he considers one of his masterpieces his rack of lamb, Clementi’s true gems hang on the walls of the Mercer Island Art Gallery and dot his Kirkland apartment.

The Italian-born artist began painting at age 13. His mother, also an artist, taught him how to paint.

“She taught me to keep me busy,” Clementi said. “She was good at drawing and I would just watch and watch.”

Seventeen years ago, Clementi ventured to the United States for a vacation. Luckily, for those seeking exceptional works of art, he never left. Clementi did not speak any English when he arrived here, so he took a job cooking in an Italian restaurant to learn the language. Though he speaks English quite well now, a thick Italian accent still punctuates every word, making him somewhat difficult to understand as he describes his painting style.

“I explored mostly cubism, but after I come here, I became more and more figurative,” Clementi said. “I found my own personal style. You can’t really call it one thing or the other. It is more the feeling you get when you look at a painting, then the feeling or emotion becomes the style. It should be other people who come up with a name for it.”

If you’ve been to Italy, you might have seen his works in such galleries as Terra Fuoco, Palazzo Brancaccio, Palazzo Delle Esposizioni de Rome, Palazzo Barberini and Ostia Anticia. And since 1992, he’s exhibited in the Seattle galleries of Nelson, Poncho, Lisa Harris and Amore.

Acrylic with an oil glaze is Clementi’s medium of choice, usually painted on wood or canvas. His picturesque European, Italian and Northwestern landscapes adhere to the classic painting traditions of the Renaissance period. For example, his use of one-point linear perspective is evident in most, if not all of his landscapes. (This is a mathematical system developed during the 15th century in Italy for indicating spatial distance in two-dimensional images, where lines converge in a single vanishing point on the horizon line.) He even throws in a little trompe l’oeil (fool the eye technique) on each of his canvases.

“I like to paint illusions,” he said. “It gives more perspective.”

But there is something decidedly non-traditional about his work as well — something that stops you from diving too far in and getting too lost in one of his vivid landscapes. Whatever that is, it’s something only an individual looking at his painting can determine for himself.

Clementi’s opening reception is from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday Jan. 13 at the Mercer Island Art Gallery located at 2729 78th Ave. S.E. His works will be on display through Feb. 13. He is also available for commissions.