{"id":244035,"date":"2010-12-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/exploring-san-diegos-hidden-urban-landscapes\/"},"modified":"2010-12-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T08:00:00","slug":"exploring-san-diegos-hidden-urban-landscapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/exploring-san-diegos-hidden-urban-landscapes\/","title":{"rendered":"Explorando los paisajes urbanos ocultos de San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Elena Buckley | SDUN Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a>
"Pernicano's" by Danny Griego<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Danny Griego wanders around Uptown, exploring, then finding, the hidden beauty in the areas deemed old or forgotten. He paints the alleyways you were too scared to walk down, the long abandoned buildings of yesteryear and the bustling street corners San Diegans drive by day-in and day-out. With a stroke of his brush, Griego brings out the liveliness deep within these everyday structures and scenes and provides locals with art that represents the beauty of everyday life in San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings that I\u2019m most fascinated with currently are just places that people walk by every day and don\u2019t give a second look to,\u201d Griego said. \u201cCool signs also attract my eye, old vintage signs that look dated, tired and old. I like to put those in my paintings.\u201d
\nOriginally from Greeley, Colo., Griego came to Hillcrest 17 years ago to work for The Old Globe Theatre as a scenic artist. He has lived in Hillcrest for most of those years. After spending 10 years working with designers and directors to paint and create scenery, Griego decided to make a career out of doing fine art instead.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know, it fires me up to see something visually, like an alleyway or building, and put that on a board or canvas; put your own vision to it, your own twist, and when it comes out the way you want it to\u2014it feels good. It\u2019s a passion,\u201d Griego said.
\n\u201cPlus, it keeps me out of trouble. I just love it. It\u2019s my first love, really.\u201d
\nGriego primarily uses oil paints due to their forgiving nature. He said that this particular medium doesn\u2019t dry very fast so you can just scrape off mistakes and start over fresh. In addition to his oil paintings, Griego also does murals, interior painting and design work as well as commissioned work for clients looking for specific portraits or scenes. He also teaches art classes part-time at University of California, San Diego.
\nCollections of his paintings depicting these cityscapes were recently on display in Hillcrest at Bread & Cie, located at 350 University Ave. It was his third show there. The collection was distinct because the paintings were small scale, showing only a sign, or an isolated piece of wall with just a few inanimate subjects in the foreground. Each detail served as a small glimpse into localized areas of the city.
\nOne of the most recognizable paintings in his current collection is that of the abandoned, and much talked about, Pernicano\u2019s Family Restaurant on Sixth Avenue in Hillcrest. Griego laughed as he mused about the interesting and strange situations going to these places has put him in, especially when discovering the Palm Reader sign in Chula Vista. It\u2019s the subject of one of his more recent paintings.
\n\u201cWhen I drive south on the Interstate-5, I always see that sign,\u201d Griego said. \u201cOne day I pulled off, had my camera with me and I just photographed it from all these different angles. The woman who owned it got upset. She came out asking, \u2018What are you doing here? You\u2019re not one of those reporters again, are you?\u2019\u201d Griego paused, \u201cI don\u2019t know what she meant by that. I said \u2018No, no, no I\u2019m an artist. I really like your building. I\u2019m just going to paint it.\u2019 She went back inside but you could see her peeking outside her window.\u201d
\nIt was obvious how much joy he gets from tracking down his subjects, and discovering hidden treasures. He also recalled a story about a man who lives near the Scripps hospital on Washington Street. The resident had a beautiful 1965 boat parked in his driveway that caught Griego\u2019s eye one day.
\n\u201cIt just looked cool parked in his driveway with his house and the palm trees,\u201d Griego explained. \u201cSo I set up and started painting it.\u201d
\nWhile Griego said that freelance mural work and commissioned paintings keep him busy for the rest of the year, he has hopes of turning his art into a full-time career.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s why I left theater,\u201d Griego said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t mind combining being a gallery artist and a teacher. It\u2019s just a tough time to do it right now.\u201d
\nThere\u2019s obvious passion and exquisite detail expressed in his work, and as he thought about it, Griego expressed how lucky he is that people enjoy his art just as much as he enjoys creating it.
\nGriego\u2019s paintings are available for viewing and purchasing online at dannygriegoart.com, and he is represented by the Artisan Collection Gallery of Hillcrest.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elena Buckley | SDUN Reporter Danny Griego wanders around Uptown, exploring, then finding, the hidden beauty in the areas deemed old or forgotten. He paints the alleyways you were too scared to walk down, the long abandoned buildings of yesteryear and the bustling street corners San Diegans drive by day-in and day-out. With a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1333,"featured_media":244036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Exploring San Diego\u2019s hidden urban landscapes","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1333"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}