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CUE Art Foundation: LEONARD CONTINO: Curated by Mark di Suvero - 2 Feb 2013 to 9 Mar 2013 Current Exhibition |
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LEONARD CONTINO, WINTER CHILL, 1986
Acrylic on canvas 88" x 68" |
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Artist's Statement Leonard Contino: Abstract Visions By Joseph Di Mattia Leonard Contino is a hard-edged geometric abstract painter who has been making art for over 40 years. In addition to painting, Contino's works include sculpture, wall reliefs and collages. His paintings are in a number of museums and private collections including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Foundation of Contemporary Art, Geneva. Contino's work, which has been described as precisionist and "visionary"(1), represents a relentless exploration of pictorial space using dynamic geometric forms. In his paintings, Contino's uses three motifs: biomorphic shapes, tessellated patterns of interlocking squares and rectangles, as well as transparent and solid color triangles, which Contino calls "floaters." In these paintings, Contino builds up thin layers of acrylic paint to create subtly shimmering surfaces. The paintings appear to glow and emanate light. At the center of the canvas, he places hard-edged densely colored solid triangular shapes. These geometric shapes and forms, encased in soft aureoles of light, appear to be weightless and suspended in space, creating a complex pictorial illusionism. However, for Contino, it's not so much to fool the eye as in trompe l'oeil or Op art but to engage the viewer by creating a painting that he says "is like a field of energy. " Within this flexible geometry, the spatial ambiguities occur over time creating a continually shifting pictorial plane. For Contino, these paintings are "made up of simple elements that are constantly changing. " This constantly changing pictorial space is a hallmark of Contino's art, something that he has persistently pursued for over 40 years. And over that time, Contino has created a body of work that is lively, rigorous and represents a compelling artistic vision. (1) Barbara Rose, "Notes to Janie C. Lee Exhibition," Houston Texas, 1978. (2) Contino, Leonard. Personal interview. 1.15.2010 Joseph Di Mattia is a writer and documentary filmmaker living in NYC. Curator's Statement by Mark di Suvero Leonard Contino is a brilliant dedicated brother-artist that I have known and worked with for fifty years. We have done figure drawing with John Chamberlain, studies from the nude, participated in the commune gallery Park Place, the radical initiating Soho gallery, and have lived the extreme life and death of New York artists. His experimental works of the 1960s that ranged from sand-paintings to optical, dazzling zig-zagged pin-stripe paintings have a true artist's inspiration and dedication. The scope and consistency of his major work is breathtaking; the geometrical central core of his work demands the focused attention that all major life-changing art works give to us. Beyond the paintings, the collage-watercolors have an idiosyncratic exploration of sexually bizarre and quirky incandescence. His sculptural maquettes have a constructivist orientation are much closer to the studied geometrical paintings that are the core of his work. His art is the reason of his life. It is not surprising that his sculpture, rarely seen in the art gallery world, is so related to the geometrical art of Park Place (1960s); his friendship with Chris Wilmarth was intense and the passion for art as a means of reconciling despair with hope and joy is something that he has shared with me for half a century. His mother was a dedicated partner in his works, a beautiful person who lived with tragedy and dedicated her life to his art in the highest level of the human spirit. Because of his weird or twisted personality he has resisted the opportunities that the commercial art galleries have offered: as Camille Xin asked "at what stage did you decide you wanted to be an art-world failure?" Hermit-like, he has built his fortress. It is his art that is important, the concentrations and perfectionism in sprung-free rational works places him in the forefront of the American Precisionist movement. He has been an inspiration to me and a friend in need, and I am thrilled that CUE Art Foundation has brightened the world with his works. |
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