For artist Dean Radinovsky, having an exhibition at Millersville University is something of a homecoming.

Although his work has been nationally and even internationally acclaimed, the Lancaster native and Millersville graduate -- who now lives in Queens, N.Y. -- is very pleased to be having his first large-scale exhibition at the university's Sykes Gallery starting Monday.

And it is a large-scale exhibition, quite literally. The show is titled "Dean Radinovsky: Large Paintings" and features several works of art, each living up to its description of being "large."

Radinovsky likes to do things in a big way. One of his most notable works was a walk-in painted installation in New York City, known as Chapel Americana. Inspired by the meditation caves on the isle of Crete, Chapel Americana was undoubtably Radinovsky's largest work ever, measuring 12 by 16 feet.

Constructed with cinder blocks, mortar and lights made of milk-glass coffee mugs, then lined with abstract paintings, Chapel Americana was a building within a building, erected in a warehouse on 57th Street, near the West Side Highway. Almost as soon as it was built, it was deconstructed.

"The chapel was never about permanence," says Radinovsky. "I was able to show it to a lot of new people so the destruction was actually a culmination."

Radinovsky's Millersville exhibition is another type of culmination, one in which the artist returns to his roots. He graduated from Millersville with a bachelor's degree in art and literature in 1993, influenced by many of his art professors, including Robert Andriulli, John Markowicz, and Jeri Robinson.

After a month of independent study and exploration in Paris, Radinovsky relocated to Queens to receive a master of fine arts in painting at Queens College, where he studied with Robert Birmelin, Cynthia Carlson, Arthur Cohen, Tyrone Mitchell, and Jenny Snyder. During this period, he also studied in Perugia, Italy, with John Walker and Don Kimes in an American University painting program.

"My father Syd Radinovsky, known as Dr. Rad, was a very popular biology professor at MU," says Radinovsky. "He taught me to approach art from a laboratory perspective, as an experiment."

For most of his career, Radinovsky has done just that. Influenced by historic and contemporary artists, filmmakers, writers and composers, he considers his work to be a synthesis of many styles.

From prehistoric cave paintings to Chinese painting with its connection to poetry, medieval Sienese painters Sassetta and the Lorenzetti brothers, Pietro and Ambrogio, to Rembrandt and Goya, Radinovsky has been touched by them all. He is particularly fond of Cezanne with his use of color and composition.

His sense of discovery leads him to observe and create links that others might not notice, such as when he observed that abstract artist Mondrian used a lot of the same visual tricks and methodologies developed by his much earlier Dutch countryman, Vermeer.

"It was a real eye-opener to see similar workings in such radically different kinds of painting," says Radinovsky, who then turned almost exclusively abstract as an artist. "I felt that I just had to experience and work through the issues of the twentieth century for myself. And I continue to do that, to experiment all the time."

Radinovsky received the prestigious Chashama Artist-in-Residence Subsidized Space Grant, and was named Chashama's Artist of the Year in 2008. In 2009, in collaboration with Ferdiko Piano Duo and classical composer José Beviá, he created digital images that were projected in accompaniment with the world premiere of Beviá's "Three Enigmas" at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City.

For all his worldly experiences, Radinovsky looks forward to coming home to Millersville for his local exhibition. He credits his painting professor Andriulli with setting the wheels in motion to bring the New York City artist back to the country -- at least for a while.

"When I first came up here, everything seemed gray," Radinovsky says. "The first autumn and winter were pretty bleak. I had been mainly a plein-air painter, and I had to get used to working in a studio. So I did as many drawings of the city as I could -- mainly views from high up, like the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, and the sixth floor of the art building at Queens College."

He discovered that an artist has many influences, like elements in a test tube, mixed together and blended into a unique creation that comes from an artist's experiences and observations.

"Ideally, in painting, the subconscious becomes conscious, and the transcendent space behind the literal idea is revealed," Radinovsky says.

"Dean Radinovsky: Large Paintings"

Opening reception, Mon. 5-7 p.m.

Cont. through Nov. 11

Mon.-Fri. 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Mon. 5-7 p.m. Free

Sykes Gallery, Breidenstine Hall

Millersville University

46 E. Frederick St., Millersville

872-3298; 872-3302
www.millersville.edu/art/ga...