Biography
Robert Carioscia’s work has been featured in solo and group museum and gallery exhibitions, including: The Freyberger Gallery at Penn State University, Lyceum Gallery at SUNY Suffolk, Fusion Arts Museum, NYC, The Maloney Gallery at the College of St. Elizabeth, The Yocum Arts Institute, Pa., The Robeson Gallery at Rutgers University, Briarcliff College Exhibition Center, St. Joseph’s College, The Islip Arts Museum, Parrish Art Museum, Hofstra University Museum, Dowling College, Youngstown State University, Elaine Benson Gallery, Giordano Gallery, James Yu Gallery, Homegrown Gallery, Mills Pond House Gallery, amongst others.
He is a recipient of residency fellowships from Yaddo, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Mark Grant, the Heckscher Art Museum Award in Painting, a Grumbacher Award and a New York Foundation for the Arts SOS Grant.
Carioscia has received public art commissions from The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit Program for permanent art at Columbus Circle Station and a public arts commission for the Mural Project at the LIRR Train Station at Smithtown, NY. He has also served on the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit selection committee and the New York Foundation for the Arts SOS Panel.
He was born in NYC and educated at Hofstra University and The Cooper Union. He began his formal career in art collaborating on performance pieces at Robert Raucshenberg’s NYC studio.
Work Statement
In my art practice, my studio is my laboratory. It’s the place where all sorts of experiments are performed, and where new work is created. I’m never quite sure what direction the work will take me. Most of the work represented in this portfolio grew out of experimentation and experience. These projects run the gamut from small 3-dimensional construction to large banner paintings. Yet, what links most of these collections is their dynamic, visceral quality and their fractured form.
The first collection on this site is entitled Mixed Media. Each mixed media piece is created using a variety of found and prepared materials. There are three groups under Mixed Media, The first series, Cosmos, are dioramic assemblages that radiate an ethereal, jewel-like quality. These three-dimensional constructions are made using paper, paint, clay, and mirrors. While my Cosmos pieces began spontaneously, they ultimately evolved into mediations on the origins of the universe and the genesis of life.
Next, the Reptaruims are mythic 3-D clay creatures seen roaming a futuristic landscape.
Aftermath, the third category under Mixed Media, were constructed with remnants of recent paintings. These assemblages are non-figurative reliquaries built from encrusted layers of paint, found objects and a variety of detritus.
The second collection, Works on Paper, contains the Missile Drawings. They are a cycle of black and white pieces that articulate visually the dark period that encompassed the Cuban Missile Crisis, duck and cover and the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. These terrifying events influenced many of my childhood nightmares. Today’s arms race and conflict with a nuclear North Korea is reigniting those terrifying memories.
The WTC drawings investigate the 9/11 attacks on the WTC and its aftermath.
The last collection, Banner Paintings, are allegorical works informed by social and political events surrounding the repercussions of 9/11. The imagery in the paintings is built up in fragmented layers. Their arched form is reminiscent of Renaissance and Baroque church art and architecture. They have taken on a biblical arc.
Robert Carioscia 2017 © All art is copyright protected and permission of the artist is necessary for reproduction