Painter Daniel L. Malisky always thought he'd be famous - eventually. "I always felt something was going to happen with my paintings, he confesses. After 28 years as an accountant for the post office, he retired in 2000 and began making up for a lifetime of suppressed artistic desire.

He's painted more than 200 pieces: some hang on the walls of his Central Park West apartment and others, like ivy, creep up the walls toward the cathedral ceilings of the living room in his Southampton home, both shared with longtime partner, Frank Castellano.

Usually after completing a painting, an artist puts the work up for sale in a gallery, but not Malisky. The 62-year-old artist says he couldn't bear to let go of any of his works, not that he needs to; he's independently wealthy from smart real estate investments. But if his mission now is to establish a name in the art world, he had to put his paintings to the test. So, that's just what he did.

Last year, he rented a booth at the annual Art Expo at the Jacob Javits Center to see how the public would respond to his work, and perhaps help him figure out what to do with his career. "You can't judge your own work. You have to walk away from it and let someone else judge it," Malisky says.

During the five-day event, Lori Michelle Feilen looked at his canvases hung without prices or frames and was puzzled. "What are you doing here? This is not where your work belongs," Feilen recalls saying. She picked five paintings and offered him $10,000. She wrote the check and instructed him to frame and deliver them to her Orient home on Long Island. Malisky says he wasn't sure his first buyer was sincere until the check cleared. Only then, he adds, could he be assured his art had value.

"I was trying to give him a message that day," says Feilen. "His artwork is very good and it stood out to me. He has a very prolific mind. He has a quick brush stroke and means it. It's second nature to him; he's not a contemplative painter. I feel his landscapes will be what set him apart. I do hope he finds someone with a trained eye that can cull from his work. With more discipline he could excel."

Malisky says his brushwork makes his paintings unique. "With the same freedom you have when you sign your name is how you should work your brush, and don't be afraid of it," he explains. "I always hit the canvas running. I like the brush to be part of the view. I want the brushwork to become the painting. It's the theatre of art."

"I'm lost somewhere in my mind when I'm painting. And I'm never afraid. I know I can work, artistically, through it. You trust that your imagination is going to take you where it supposed to."

Malisky began dabbling in art in 1978 by painting furniture using the chinoiserie, or Chinese, method, a very intricate style involving sharp details and exhausting research. After about two years, he felt burnt out and set aside painting until he retired from the post office. He began taking private painting lessons in the city from Susan Young at The Pastel Society, a division of The New York Art League, and on Long Island at the Huntington Art League.

Later, he studied under Peter Cox and Richard Peonck at the historic West 57th Street Art Students League. "I liked it when other students would peer over my shoulder and watch me, it made me feel very confident," he says. "I know I have a style I'm very comfortable with, and I'm very happy that I'm financially secure and don't need to sell my artwork."

Last year, with his portfolio under his arm, Malisky attended a seminar for gay and lesbian artists, where David Jarrett, chairman of The Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation in SoHo, took an interest in his work. Jarrett, a large collector of male figurative art, says Malisky's female work is 'triply outstanding.' The Foundation owns the prestigious Leslie/Lohman Gallery on Wooster Street in Manhattan.

Jarrett bought two of Malisky's paintings: one for his South Beach collection and one for his New York City collection. "I think Daniel does extraordinary work in oils on canvas, graphite's and pen on paper," he says.

"He can draw with pen on paper without lifting the pen up once from the paper. He has a rhythmic hand and can very quickly apply those mediums, which turn out to be a magnificent image. There are very few artists with that ability. When I visited his studio/home in the Hamptons, I was overwhelmed by the huge number of paintings on his walls, many of which are museum quality," Jarrett adds.

The collector's most recent acquisition is Malisky's "Boy in a Landscape." The walls of his South Beach home were filled, so he bought an artist's easel to prominently display the painting. He intends to have an unveiling of the piece in South Beach this winter. "To buy a painting without having someplace to hang it says something for the quality of that particular piece of art. I believe Dan's use of color and the multiple colors in every painting are breathtaking, lending it life and vitality that is so unique to his art," he says.

Malisky finds himself in a quandary when it comes to making a mark in the art world. "I really don't get involved. I don't think that any of these galleries are really out there to help an artist. They're a business and have got to pay the bills. They need the bang. They go for the big guys and can't nurture, or be altruistic, with a young, or untried artist," he says.

But sometimes art speaks for itself. "Because he does not need to live off of his art and does not need to cater to the whim of poor-taste collectors, he is free to be himself and paint what he wants," says Jarrett. "The truth is in the work."