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Paul Pletka is a neo-surrealistic painter inspired by his fascination from early childhood with Native Americans of the Southwest. His style, described as neo-surrealistic, "is both realistic and deeply spiritual, being highly sensitive to the inner thoughts of Native Americans."
Paul Pletka was born in southern California in 1946 and currently resides in New Mexico. After high school, he won a scholarship to Arizona State University and then transferred to Colorado State University, but feeling disappointed in his college art training, did not paint seriously until the late 1960s.
His works of art have been exhibited in one-man shows in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New York, Kansas and Missouri continuously since 1964. Pletka's paintings are in more than 40 private and public art collections including the Albany Museum of Art, Albany, GA; Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, MO; Mel Pfaelzer Collection, University of Northern Illinois, De Kalb; the Norton Gallery & School of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; and the United States Department of Interior, Washington, D.C.
In an interview for ART-TALK, Pletka said, "When I was a youngster and first enchanted with Indian costume, lore and artifacts, I would sometimes pretend I was an Indian. I soon realized that was not intellectually reasonable. I am not an Indian. I am simply an interpreter." Pletka does constant research on the late 19th century Indians and meticulously depicts accurate information in his paintings.
