The Dream Homes Of Edgardo Abello

The rivalry between art and photography is over, right? After all, any task the artist can do the camera can do better – faster, more cheaply and with absolute fidelity to detail. It all started in the 1850s, when photographers began to put portrait painters out of business. For commercial artists, things went downhill from there.

By the end of the 20th century there were relatively few illustrators still plying their trade, as everything from archaeological objects to zoological specimens were recorded by means of the camera lens rather than the technical pen. In the current millennium, digital photography is omnipresent. Not only is it the common medium for reproduction; it also visualizes the unseen and maps the unrealized. Is there any place left in commerce, science or industry for art?

For one Vero Beach man, the answer is yes. Architectural illustrator Edgardo Abello’s clients are discerning architects and builders who prefer hand-drawn and painted architectural renderings to the cold, dry product of the camera. But as important as these aesthetic concerns may be, the essential purpose of Edgardo’s art is to predict the future. While the camera produces perfect reproductions of extant places, Edgardo’s art shows us perfect places that do not yet exist. It may be a townhouse or a building or, more complicated still, a subdivision complete with homes, roads and sidewalks, trees and shrubbery, cars tooling down the streets and kids playing in the front yards. An architectural illustration can show all of this in crisp, enticing detail well before the first foundation has been poured.

Read the entire article in the Summer 2008 issue