In 2004, Philadelphia painter Francis Di Fronzo was awarded one of twelve Pew Fellowship in the Arts. During this pivotal moment in his artistic career, landscape painting became "a stage for everything in life. Anyone who looks at a landscape painting can identify immediately." In his paintings, Di Fronzo depicts highly realistic scenes of the natural world, which are both beautiful and poetic, but also deeply mysterious, and at times ominous and foreboding.

Di Fronzo's painting technique has helped to underscore his outlook. He works with a "comb brush", of his own design, comprised of 60-80 individual hairs attached to a wooden stick. Using this comb, he creates images of open fields and rolling...