Over the course of forty years, Victori, painted portraits for Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, and Senator Ted Kennedy among others and offered live sittings at his Park Avenue gallery. After creating approximately 30,000 oil paintings, Victori retired from portraits to experiment with a style of painting he had been developing since 1979, which he termed “multiplism”. Unlike portraits, which portray a single moment, Victori’s multiplist works combined the subject in many different positions and expressions in order to show change over time.
Trained at the Art Academy of Korea and community college in the US, Victori, emigrated to the United States in 1972 and became well known for his presidential portraits in the White House. He cites favorite painters including Rembrandt because of his “depth and technique” and mastery for portraits, and Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens for his scale.
In 2010, Victor completed a lifelong dream to paint 10 Mona Lisas in the span of 24 hours. The Leader newspaper, a publication in the Meadowlands of New Jersey, documented the artistic ordeal.
The artist also released a book entitled “God and I” which takes the reader through his craft and the philosophical ideas that fuel it.
In September 2013, Victori unveiled a completed, 8-by-12-foot panel, commemorative painting of the tragedy that befell America on September 11, 2001. It was documented and reported on by a staff writer of Northjersey.com. Victori’s career and experience in portrait work spanned much of his adult life, however he still managed to focus on developing a unique and divergent method of painting; a method that essentially layers what is seen in a single portrait and incites a deeper perception of his paintings’ subjects. Having gazed upon so many thousands of faces during his career, Victori realized that a single instance of time frozen in a portrait hides the multiple moods, emotions, and states of mind concealed behind stationary, fixed expressions. “Multiplism”, as he coined it, reveals the many behind the one, unfolding all possible dimensions of a being in one multi-faceted piece of work. Victori’s advances into Multiplism have brought about paintings such as the “Many Faces of Mona” in which Da Vinci’s iconic painting is transformed into a multiple-faced version of her former self. Victori began developing this style of art in the 1970s and continues to evolve its meaning and composition, not just through painting, but mural and sculpture work as well.
Victori has never restricted his palette to accept only the finest oil paints. Among the entire portfolio some paintings have been created using materials such as enamels, acrylics, oils, gasoline, typical house paint or water colors. The mood of certain portraits require particular textures and thickness. The media range includes linen, canvas, panel, wood or glass. Victori's repertoire also includes murals, spanning as large as 20 x 20 feet. A few of them, originally constructed out of Masonite panels and painted outdoors, now cover the ceilings and walls of Victori's home, while a number of others were completed on the interior walls of many clients' homes. "The Circle of Life", a 15 x 20-foot mural, depicts hundreds of swirling naked bodies as they encircle a bright horizon. It has become one of Victori's signature works and is representative of his mastery as an artist.
Victori painted all 45 United States presidents' portraits, which are all in the Victori Museum collection. Former presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump all were presented with their portraits. The White House has a mural depicting all the nation's presidents from Washington to Nixon—presented to the federal government one year after Victori moved to the United States from Paris in 1972. "This impressive work of art and the individual portraits you did of me and the Vice President are welcome additions to my collection of special memorabilia," Nixon said. Source: North Jersey Media Group
Al Capone, Frank Costello, Sam Giancano, Tommy Lucchese, John Gotti, Lucky Luciano, Paul Castellano, Carlo Gambino, Carmine Galante, Giuseppe Profaci and Vito Genevese portraits immortalize the crime bosses. These portraits by Victori were commissioned by a private collector.
Fascinated by world cultural, religious and political history, Victori got to work painting 400 years of Roman emperors. He painted Julius Caesar, Caligula Caesar, Nero, Claudius, Tiberius, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, Maximilian, Constantine II, Justinian, and others. Source: North Jersey Media Group
Depicting the creation of mankind, Victori has painted hundreds of key figures in major world religions, all done in his multiplism style. His scenes include Adam and Eve their descendants, scenes from Genesis, Noah, Jesus, Mary Magdaline, Saul, King David, Elijah, Ishmael, Abraham, and more.
From the Big Bang to planet formations, Victori has traced the origins of the Universe and marveled at the infiniteness in his paintings. His vision of the stars, planets, supernovas, black holes and spectacular interstellar images are done in an array of colors set against a midnight black darkness—providing a perfect juxtaposition. Source: North Jersey Media Group
Victori's specific style, dubbed by journalists and art enthusiasts alike as a new school of art, is called Multiplism. In essence, this artistic approach highlights the many behind the one, unfolding all possible dimensions of a being in one all-inclusive piece of work.[9] This style of art was created in the late 70's. The purpose of the multiplism technique is to capture the motion of life. Multiplism is the simultaneous image of the subjects various consequential movements or to depict the shifts in emotion expressed by an individual.[10] The intent of the artist is to display a moving painting.
Victori uses an unconventional medium for his sculptures by mixing concrete and sand into a mortar. Early in his sculpting career clay was the preferred medium, but clay is relatively more expensive and too fragile to create large works to be displayed outdoors. The concrete mix would allow for the malleability of clay and upon drying would have more permanence as a building block. One of Victori's largest scale projects of the past decade is an 11-foot high 10,000-pound sculpture named "Minds of Moses" that rests on the property of Victori's corner home depicting the many sides of the religious figure. Alongside the sculpture are 3 slightly smaller cement statues of Zeus, Jesus, and Buddha. The completion of these pieces spurred much local news coverage for the artist and he has since added various other abstract pieces to the outdoor collection. Most notable sculpture models have been Moses, Jesus, Zeus, and Buddha, all measuring at over 9 & 11'.
In 2006, Victori unveiled his "Minds of Moses" colossal statute. The roughly 16-foot high artwork is composed of 120 80-lb bags of cement and took two years to complete. During this time, curious onlookers often stopped by to watch the artist at work. The sculpture work brings Victori's multiplism into a 3-D effect. Source: northjersey.com. Dana Rapisardi of The Leader newspaper in the Meadowlands profiled Victori's unveiling of his front-lawn sculpture. The unveiling was an enormous community event in Rutherford, New Jersey, where Victori lives. The semi-permanent installation gained statewide notoriety on local news networks, periodicals and cult catalogs like Weird N.J. citing Victori under the local heroes and artists page as the creator of the "Multiplism Moses" sculpture, issue 31, page 72.
