Daniel Belardinelli is an American artist associated with
outsider art
Outsider art is Fine art, art made by Autodidacticism, self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the Convention (norm), conventions of the art worlds.
The term ''ou ...
. He is a writer, art dealer, curator and an attorney.
Early life
Daniel Belardinelli was born and raised in
Manhattan, New York
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
.
Belardinelli experienced communication difficulties as a child and learned to express himself through artistic compositions.
By the age of 15, he frequented Studio 54
Studio 54 is a Broadway theatre, Broadway theater and former nightclub at 254 West 54th Street (Manhattan), 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, U.S. Opened as the Gallo Opera House in 1927, it served ...
and Xenon
Xenon is a chemical element; it has symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
and, as a result, he met and was influenced by Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...
, Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg; August 17, 1923 – August 14, 2002) was an American painter, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was on ...
, Christopher Makos and Antonio Lopez. He developed various addictions, but was eventually able to subdue them by drawing and painting about them.[
]
Personal life
Belardinelli booked a ticket on United Airlines Flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers planned to crash the plane into a feder ...
for September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...
, a flight that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Shanksville is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States. It has a population of 199 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census. It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical ...
. Belardinelli changed his plans at the last minute and did not board the flight. As his uncle, William Cashman, died on the flight, he was allowed to listen to the tapes of the flight and later completed a drawing of what the terrorists had announced over the loudspeaker to the passengers. This drawing was included in Jere Longman's book, ''Among the Heroes''. Belardinelli was featured in the A&E documentary '' I Missed Flight 93'' (2006).
Belardinelli has also resided in Boonton, New Jersey
Boonton () is a town in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the town's population was 8,815, an increase of 468 (+5.6%) from the 2010 census count of 8,347, which in turn reflected a decline o ...
.[DiIonno, Mark]
"Jersey artist goes from 'outsider' to insider"
''The Star-Ledger
''The Star-Ledger'' was the largest circulation newspaper in New Jersey. It is based in Newark, New Jersey. The newspaper ceased print publication on February 2, 2025, but continues to publish a digital edition.
In 2007, ''The Star-Ledger''s ...
'', February 5, 2017. Accessed August 26, 2018. "In 2009, attorney and artist Daniel Belardinelli, was in the North Bergen Municipal Court to help out a friend with a motor vehicle violation.... 'He was this very simple guy,' said Belardinelli, who lives in Boonton."
Career
Belardinelli uses multiple mediums to paint, with nail polish
Nail polish (also known as nail varnish in British English or nail enamel) is a lacquer that can be applied to the human Nail (anatomy), fingernails or toenails to decorate and protect the nail plates. The formula has been revised repeatedly t ...
featuring as a dominant medium of his art since 1985. He draws and paints daily in large 'At-A-Glance' journals which bear witness to his life. He has exhibited at the Outsider Art Fair annually since 1995, and his work has been displayed in the American Visionary Art Museum
The American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) is an art museum located in Baltimore, Maryland's Federal Hill neighborhood at 800 Key Highway. The museum specializes in the preservation and display of outsider art (also known as "intuitive art," " ...
. In 2001, several of Belardinelli's nail polish paintings were included in the "High On Life – Transcending Addictions" show, which was curated by Tom Paterson at AVAM. He has participated in "Revelations and Reflections of American Self Taught Artists", and has exhibited worldwide, but most extensively in Europe and the Americas. He was listed in "Outsider Art Fair: 10 Artists to Buy Now" in ''The Daily Beast''.
Belardinelli has no formal art training, but is a graduate of City University of New York School of Law
A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...
. He is an attorney licensed by The State Bar of New Jersey (both State and Federal Courts), the Southern and Eastern Federal District Courts of New York State and The United States Supreme Court in Washington, DC. He was an organizer of the 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization, "The New Jersey Volunteer Lawyers Association," and has been a featured artist in their annual fundraiser.
References
External links
Daniel Belardinelli
official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belardinelli, Daniel
Living people
1961 births
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
American outsider artists
Painters from New York City
People from Boonton, New Jersey
20th-century American male artists
CUNY School of Law alumni