René Capone

René Carol Capone (b. September 22, 1978) is an American figure painter known for his depiction of the male form with whimsical, erotic & mysterious imagery, often in mythical contexts. Capone began his art career creating dreamlike, sensual, often homoerotic images of young men in search of love, identity & their place in the world. Private collectors of Capone's work can be found in the U.S, Canada, Sweden, England, France, Japan & the Netherlands. In 2004 Glaxo Smith Kline became his first corporate collector.

Born in upstate New York in a small town named Niskayuna, he attended the Parsons School of Design in New York City with a scholarship in fine arts. Upon completion in 2000, he moved to California to continue studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has a special place in his heart for the Bay Area, where his art career took off.

Capone took a four-year absence from creating fine art to dig deep into the topic of child abuse, releasing a graphic novel titled The Legend of Hedgehog Boy. The novel struck a deep chord with readers & transformed the artist as well. Other publishing achievements include: "Stripped: The Illustrated Male" from Bruno Gmunder. His work has been featured in The Advocate, RFD Magazine, XY magazine, Blue, Joey, Y&A, and others. His art can be seen on book covers from France to Israel, including a four-volume series by author Jonathan Taylor called The Goldberg Variations, published by ArnoLand Books.

Capone was hospitalized for multiple bone replacement procedures from 2015 to 2018. Although titanium from the waist down, he has made a full recovery. His series "The Chronicles of Zebra Boy," explores the metaphor of becoming a living zebra as a symbolic reflection of surgery. HIVPlusMag featured his work in "Turning Scars Into Art."

The Cherryland Art Gallery in Hayward was his haven after the bone surgeries. Since then, he has relocated to Newport Beach. Capone has healed, recovered & moved on with his life. It's a beautiful thing to defy death. He continues to work constantly on figure art, still looking for magic, mystery & a touch of undefinable danger. At 40 years old his voluminous body of work contains great depth of imagination and emotional range.

In 2019, Capone released a full-length art book called "A Boy Named Patience" to celebrate a two-decade art career. This 240-page collection features some of the most emotionally evocative images from the artist's vast portfolio, and features the tender words of poet Dave Russo alongside the stunning images. It has been called a "mercurial collection of undying devotion" by Italian photographer Daniel Nicoletta.