| Paul Catalanotto |
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Paul Catalanotto |
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Solo Show
September 1-30, 2010
Plainview-Old Bethpage Library
999 Old Country Rd.
Plainview, NY 11803
Opening Reception, September 12, 2pm-5pm
illustration, sculpture, photography and animation at Carnegie Mellon
University and Pratt Institute.
a premier artisan plaster company that pioneered tinted plaster techniques for
interior design and architecture. In his eight years at AIC, Paul started as a
laborer and eventually oversaw all project operations.
In 1995, Paul established Timeless Plaster to explore the full potential of tinted
plaster as an artistic and architectural medium.
Polished Fresco is the product of twenty year’s work as one of the most sought
after plaster artisans in New York City. Paul pioneered new techniques and
created custom installations that elevated tinted plaster wall treatments to
artistic environments for clients such as Charles Gwathmey, Jerry Seinfeld,
Christie’s Auction House, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, Pepsico, David Geffen,
Helmut Lang, Sandy Brandt and Ingrid Sischy, and Richard Gluckman.
After 20 years, Paul has taken tinted plaster to the next level and is now devoted
solely to creating works of art in Polished Fresco.
MEDIUM
Polished Frescos are made from a proprietary medium called B.F.S.
"B.F.S. has a flexibility that brings together my plastering skills, artistic
background and philosophical beliefs. It is unlike paint or any other plaster-based
materials. The combination of this medium and how I’m using it allows me to express
myself in a distinctive way."
My artwork stems from my experience as an artisan plasterer mixing different
plasters with a variety of tints, oxides, inks, and noticing how colors influence
the medium. When red is added, the plaster is transformed. It runs, it bleeds,
it seeps into everything like a virus. Blue, at the other end of the spectrum,
makes the plaster thick and sticky. It stays. It blankets. Yellow, between the
two extremes, has what I call the Goldilocks effect – it’s just right. Creamy and
spreadable, it is the easiest color to apply.
I apply my plaster medium with trowels and other various plastering tools.
My trowels become forces of nature, compressing, burying, scraping back, pushing
and pulling the colors around. The stress I apply to the medium helps bring out
its true colors.
It was the weakness of brown plaster that gave me my “Aha” moment. Browns in
nature are generally old or dead, weak and brittle. It occurred to me that the
effect color has on plaster is the same as color behaves in nature. I started
to look at how color behaves as light as well as in a medium, how our eyes and
brain perceives colors, and just as importantly, how we emotionally feel about
color. I found too many similarities to ignore.
I now look at colors as energy that dominate different domains in an orderly
fashion, from the blue sky down to the red, hot magma or blood running through
our veins. As light, red, like infrared, penetrates deeper into everything, while
blue and violet, near ultraviolet, have a harder time penetrating our atmosphere.
Emotionally, we are quick to anger (Seeing Red) and are prone to long bouts of
depression (The Blues). To oversimplify, red at one end of the color spectrum is
the fastest and thinnest and blue near the other end is thicker and slower.
I not only use the physical energy of color to imitate nature but to continually
push the medium to it’s maximum performance.
PAST SHOWS
Solo Show
October 28, 2010 to Febuary 24, 2010
Tamboril
527 Myrtle Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
November 7 and 8, 2009
The Flatbush Artists Studio tour
1415 Dorchester Rd. and 13 other locations
Brooklyn, NY
Go to www.flatbushartists.com to get map
Flatbush Artists Group Show
November 5 to December 22, 2009
Opening Reception, November 5, 7 - 10pm
The Newkirk Medical Plaza
1414 Newkirk Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
Solo Show
Aug 6 - Sep 18, 2008
Artsee
863 Washington St.
Manhattan, NY
Jacob Javits Convention Center
New York, NY
Solo Show
Dec. 15 - Feb. 26, 2008
The Farm on Adderly
1108 Cortelyou Rd.
Brooklyn, NY
Solo Show
May 2007
Lounge Zen
254 Degraw Ave
Teaneck, NJ
June 7 and June 8
F.A.S.T.
Flatbush Artist's Studio Tour
1415 Dorchester Road
Brooklyn, NY
917-496-7510
| © 2006 PAUL CATALANOTTO |  |