ELLA W. Richardson Fine Art has been bringing renowned and award-winning artists from around the world to Charleston since 2001. The gallery’s catalog ranges from impressionism, realism, contemporary abstracts and black-and-white photography to porcelain, jewelry, bronzes and etchings. The gallery also consigns works by some of the famous Charleston Renaissance artists.

Featured here are five oil paintings by Mark Sylva. He is an artist from Hampton Bay, New York, with an eye for beauty. He was born gazing at the waters around Cape Cod, and his love of the sea and boating were early influences that ultimately led to a career in painting. Sylva studied art and design at the New England School of Art and Design. After graduating, he ran a successful design business for 20 years.

Sylva’s art tends to be of a loose representation and abstract quality of the subject. His landscapes draw from ideas of simplicity and infuse the tranquility of isolation and space. Depth and space created with layers present a certain solitude that makes Sylva’s work especially unique. This taps into aspects that the viewer might see as a forever beyond or destination to somewhere, as well as the idea of feeling alone but not lonely.