Billy Solitario finds beauty among the sand dunes, coastal savannahs, and barrier islands along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast. Solitario was born March 19, 1972, in Manhattan Beach, California, where his father worked on the Apollo space program. While he was still a child, the family moved to Gautier, Mississippi, near Ocean Springs. There he spent his childhood enjoying the sea, beaches, open skies, and all the Gulf Coast had to offer a young boy.

After graduating in 1994 from the University of South Florida in Tampa with a Bachelor of Arts, Solitario moved to New Orleans and worked a brief time for an advertising firm. From 1995 to 1998, he studied painting at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art. In 2005, he began teaching landscape and portrait painting at the Academy. In 2003, Solitario received a Master of Fine Arts from Tulane University in New Orleans, where he taught beginner’s drawing and painting from 2001 to 2003.

Solitario, who refers to himself as a “classic realist”, explores various subjects, including landscapes, portraits and still life paintings. As a landscape painter, solitario says he is most inspired by cumulonimbus clouds and the Mississippi River. He emphasizes the magnitude of the sky and clouds above small slivers of land below. Billy Solitario’s still life works honor the rainbow of colors found in the crabs, oysters, and crawfish native to the Gulf Coast. Billy paints with a “wet on wet” technique and uses value to bring his signature depth to the pieces.