George Gallo has painted since childhood. When he was only three years old, he showed his mother a rendering of a rescue helicopter pulling survivors from a plane crash at sea. She didn’t believe that he had done it, so she asked him to do another. She was amazed when he did. He continued to surprise adults with his talent, winning "Class Artist Award" from his elementary school art teacher, who complimented him on his "perfect sense of perspective."

He became enamored with landscape paintings when he first saw a print by Robert Wood. Later, he was able to see more inspiring paintings when he discovered the Donald Art Company in the building next door to his junior high. This company made prints from the works of both historic and modern painters. Gallo befriended the owners and was able to spend countless afternoons inside, studying the masters.

After high school, he began taking trips into New York City to further his art education. He was inspired by the work of the Pennsylvania impressionists, especially Edward Redfield. Gallo began painting with his friend, George Cherepov. Together, they took trips to Smuggler’s Notch and Mount Mansfield, armed with their sketch boxes.

Gallo shied away from painting for nearly eight years, when he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his screenwriting and directing career. After the success of his screenplay, Midnight Run, he picked up his brushes again. He was given a one-man show in New York.

After directing 29th Street in 1991, he began to feel a change in the movie business. He felt it got increasingly corporate. Gallo’s view of writing and directing at the time changed and became a financial means to an end. He felt the only way to express himself unhampered appeared to be painting.

Friends Ray Liotta, Ron Perlman, David Permut, Michael Negrin, Robert Ziembicki, and Malcom Campbell came to his aid after reading his script for Local Color. Gallo’s wife and lifelong friend James Evangelatos helped to finance the film. Finally, he felt he could make a film without any restrictions, and he remembered why he wanted to make movies in the first place.

He was able to live his dream. Says Gallo, “Eventually, I came to understand that all of the arts are intertwined. That composition in painting is the same as structure in storytelling; that characters are the same as colors; that colors are the same as chords in music."