We’re incredibly happy to welcome back Don Paonessa to our Highlander WorldWide experience and family and to look at his essential contribution to various aspects of the show.
Don was born in Mamaroneck, New York and raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. He focused on Fine Arts and Photography throughout his schooling, graduating from UCLA with an MFA in Film.
During his career as a filmmaker, Don has been a writer, producer, director and editor. For over 25 years he worked in film and television. Seven of those years were spent on Highlander: The Series where he directed, edited, and produced the Post-Production for the television show. He also utilized his art background to design the visual effects and graphics.
From an early age, Don continued concurrently to pursue his other artistic passion, oil painting. Don has created a body of work that reflects his own take on a photo-realistic style, with a wide-range of subject matter. These include both personal and political images, and Don is quoted as saying “It’s all about the narrative…”, as there is more to these works than simply the images on the canvas.
He is currently working on a series called LA Noir which captures some local, iconic structures in L. A. and he’s also considering some larger paintings incorporating reflections (which have also been part of some earlier paintings in differing ways).Don is now turning to painting exclusively during this period of his life and is looking for an audience with whom to share his lifelong work. While not new to painting, he has devoted his career to film, and the desire to share his creative expression in paintings now which will certainly be met with enthusiasm as his distinctive, arresting work is introduced to the art world.
