Lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri.
Carmon Colangelo is one of the preeminent artists of his generation-a pioneering printmaker whose work combines surrealism and abstraction with the exploration of art history, science and technology. The exhibition "Big Bang to Big Melt" at Bruno David Gallery is his second solo exhibition in Saint Louis.
The new series of work, explores ideas about the creation of the universe and man-made changes in the environment-from the Big Bang to the Big Melt. This paradoxical relationship expands on Colangelo's investigation of the biological aspects of evolution and takes a closer look at the physical environment. His imagery presents a playful odyssey that references the meta-narratives of art history and natural history by juxtaposing utopian ideals of modernism with the contingent aesthetics of surrealism and conceptual art. His taxonomy ranges from primitive organisms to bears and rhinoceros to other more bizarre and ambiguous creatures. The animals function in or independently from architectonic forms and urban landscapes, producing a vivid, chimerical vision Colangelo's works push the physical and haptic qualities of the print, using new methods and transformative materials such as wax and iridescent inks. This new series was created in collaboration with master printer Dennis O'Neil at the Hand Print Workshop International (HPWI) in Alexandria, VA, a studio dedicated to innovative printmaking. A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Paul Krainak accompanies the exhibition.
An enduring feature of Carmon Colangelo's work is the unraveling of free-floating symbols and texts in an aggressive exploitation of wet and dry media. His prints and paintings are marked by neo-primitives forms, which are then tempered by soothing veils of light. He challenges conventional readings, producing disorienting spatial topologies and striking visual poetics. His images may swing from the obsessively personal to the openly topical, allowing disparate formal structures and semiotics to inspire the production of remarkable forms that are somehow freed from the preceding visual context and grammar.
Carmon Colangelo has exhibited widely, from Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. to Argentina, Canada, England, Puerto Rico, and Korea. His works are in collections at the National Museum of American Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. He is the Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and holds the E. Desmond Lee Professorship for Collaboration in the Arts.
Big Bang with Web
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
36- 1/2 x 30-1/4 inches (paper size)
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2my(III)
Mixed media on paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches
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2my(II)
Mixed media on paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches
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2my(I)
Mixed media on paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches
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Sandcastle
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
39-1/2 x 30- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Big Melt
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
38 x 30- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Tower
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
35-1/2 x 29- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Happiness
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
37- 1/2 x 30- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Cubed 2
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
38- 1/2 x 30- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Demo
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
38 x 30- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Big Melt: Bare Truth
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
41 x 15- 1/4 inches (paper size)
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Birdseye
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
30- 1/4 x 22- 3/4 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (I)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (II)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (III)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (IV)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (V)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (VI)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (VII)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Mondrian Skies (VIII)
Screen print, wax, with dry pigment and oil paint
22- 3/4 x 28- 1/2 inches (paper size)
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Evolution
Collagraph and digital print on paper
42 x 30 in
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Faint Idea
Digital print with watercolor on paper
41-3/4 x 29-1/2 in.
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Spearhead
Digital print on paper
41-3/4 x 29-3/4 in.
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Hangman
Digital print with chin colle, watercolor and ink on paper
41-3/4 x 29-1/2 in.
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Ditto
Digital print with chin colle, watercolor and ink on paper
41-3/4 x 29-3/4 in.
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Frank and Eve
Digital print with chin colle, watercolor, primsa color and ink on paper
42-1/2 x 30 in.
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Antenna
Digital print with chin colle, watercolor and ink on paper
41-3/4 x 29-3/4 in.
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Id
Digital print with chin colle, watercolor and ink on paper
41-3/4 x 29-1/2 in.
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Bloggers
Collagraph and digital print on paper
22 x 30 in
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Cornered
Collagraph and digital print on paper
42 x 30 in
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Spiders
Ink and gouache on paper
22 x 30 in
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Devolution
Collagraph and digital print on paper
42 x 30 in
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Body Bizarre
Collagraph and digital print on paper
42 x 30 in
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Bridge
Digital print on paper (Diptych)
60 x 42 in
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Popeye
Digital print on paper (Diptych)
60 x 42 in
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Double
Ink and gouache on paper
30 x 22 inches
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