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James Pustorino (Brooklyn, NY, 1961)
In my work process I engage concepts and actions that I have classified as Myth, Math,
Memory, Music, Movement--while in the physical sense, I encounter Materials, the
Man-Made and the Mark.
Myth is a conceptualization of a reality or truth which is greater than ourselves and provides or searches for meaning. Myth is what motivates all to act as we do. Our myths are collective, building through our cultures, media and family history. All my work starts with myth in some way, with a vision of a structure or image that holds my own or collective aspirations. Sometimes, as in the America/landscape series, the myth (America itself) is the subject as well.
Math, for me, is the building of a structure, finding the points in space and connecting the lines, creating systems, adding and subtracting and balancing the parts. This, when this is done through drawing and paint, is a very different exploration than if one had to build objects in physical space, and much more speculative. An inspiration for how I consider Myth and Math together is how Einstein and other physics create myth-stories in real space-sometimes gridded, diagrammed space, to explain mathematical concepts.
Memory-as I work, I draw upon experience of art and life: internal images put together from what I have seen, places I have been, impressions of light air heaviness solidity etc.
Music provides a poetic pattern that is physically compelling music provides passages
where different things happen, music tells an abstract story, music culminates into a
whole experienced and lived through time.
Movement, finally is what I perceive how to effect in the image--it can come first but is
usually only fully realized at the end.
In my work process I engage concepts and actions that I have classified as Myth, Math,
Memory, Music, Movement--while in the physical sense, I encounter Materials, the
Man-Made and the Mark.
Myth is a conceptualization of a reality or truth which is greater than ourselves and provides or searches for meaning. Myth is what motivates all to act as we do. Our myths are collective, building through our cultures, media and family history. All my work starts with myth in some way, with a vision of a structure or image that holds my own or collective aspirations. Sometimes, as in the America/landscape series, the myth (America itself) is the subject as well.
Math, for me, is the building of a structure, finding the points in space and connecting the lines, creating systems, adding and subtracting and balancing the parts. This, when this is done through drawing and paint, is a very different exploration than if one had to build objects in physical space, and much more speculative. An inspiration for how I consider Myth and Math together is how Einstein and other physics create myth-stories in real space-sometimes gridded, diagrammed space, to explain mathematical concepts.
Memory-as I work, I draw upon experience of art and life: internal images put together from what I have seen, places I have been, impressions of light air heaviness solidity etc.
Music provides a poetic pattern that is physically compelling music provides passages
where different things happen, music tells an abstract story, music culminates into a
whole experienced and lived through time.
Movement, finally is what I perceive how to effect in the image--it can come first but is
usually only fully realized at the end.
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From an early age, Pustorino's work has been affected by light and landscape. Pustorino began formal training at age 11 at a gallery on the Long Island Sound, and when his family moved to a Northern Virginia area along the Potomac River in his mid-teens in the late 1970s, he continued to explore color, light and abstract form. Identifying early on with the sensibilities of the Washington Color School artists, he added to these his interest in geometry and physics, as well as his graphic design drawing training that emphasized curvilinear and dimensional form.
He began been exhibiting art in his teens in Virginia, and received his BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983, with a focus on printmaking, drawing and painting.
continued to work in Virginia exhibiting and organizing exhibitions in
exhibited briefly in the East Village, NYC and then began showing and organizing exhibitions in Pittsburgh, PA and Columbus and Youngstown, OH. This led to Pustorino having a few major works included in larger exhibits both at the Butler Institute, and at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
Pustorino moved to the Jersey City area in 1997 and continued to exhibit in venues throughout the U.S., including Odetta Gallery, NYC, and the Jersey City Museum, and has had solo exhibitions with Chambers 916 Gallery in Portland, OR, and recent solo exhibitions in Casa Colombo and Watchung Art Center in NJ.
Pustorino’s large-scale compositions engage concepts of language and pictorialization, through varying systems of mark-making and adopted ‘cultural’ forms, positive/negative space, concepts of unfinished/finished, as well as representational/abstract. His work focuses on invention of form and the optics of color and is created in thematic series produced on various substrates and in various media. He compares his process to creating a musical composition using specific musical instruments or tones to create an abstract ''narrative'.
He began been exhibiting art in his teens in Virginia, and received his BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983, with a focus on printmaking, drawing and painting.
continued to work in Virginia exhibiting and organizing exhibitions in
exhibited briefly in the East Village, NYC and then began showing and organizing exhibitions in Pittsburgh, PA and Columbus and Youngstown, OH. This led to Pustorino having a few major works included in larger exhibits both at the Butler Institute, and at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
Pustorino moved to the Jersey City area in 1997 and continued to exhibit in venues throughout the U.S., including Odetta Gallery, NYC, and the Jersey City Museum, and has had solo exhibitions with Chambers 916 Gallery in Portland, OR, and recent solo exhibitions in Casa Colombo and Watchung Art Center in NJ.
Pustorino’s large-scale compositions engage concepts of language and pictorialization, through varying systems of mark-making and adopted ‘cultural’ forms, positive/negative space, concepts of unfinished/finished, as well as representational/abstract. His work focuses on invention of form and the optics of color and is created in thematic series produced on various substrates and in various media. He compares his process to creating a musical composition using specific musical instruments or tones to create an abstract ''narrative'.
CV
From an early age, Pustorino's work has been affected by light and landscape. Pustorino began formal training at age 11 at a gallery on the Long Island Sound, and when his family moved to a Northern Virginia area along the Potomac River in his mid-teens in the late 1970s, he continued to explore color, light and abstract form. Identifying early on with the sensibilities of the Washington Color School artists, he added to these his interest in geometry and physics, as well as his graphic design drawing training that emphasized curvilinear and dimensional form.
He began been exhibiting art in his teens in Virginia, and received his BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983, with a focus on printmaking, drawing and painting.
continued to work in Virginia exhibiting and organizing exhibitions in
exhibited briefly in the East Village, NYC and then began showing and organizing exhibitions in Pittsburgh, PA and Columbus and Youngstown, OH. This led to Pustorino having a few major works included in larger exhibits both at the Butler Institute, and at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
Pustorino moved to the Jersey City area in 1997 and continued to exhibit in venues throughout the U.S., including Odetta Gallery, NYC, and the Jersey City Museum, and has had solo exhibitions with Chambers 916 Gallery in Portland, OR, and recent solo exhibitions in Casa Colombo and Watchung Art Center in NJ.
Pustorino’s large-scale compositions engage concepts of language and pictorialization, through varying systems of mark-making and adopted ‘cultural’ forms, positive/negative space, concepts of unfinished/finished, as well as representational/abstract. His work focuses on invention of form and the optics of color and is created in thematic series produced on various substrates and in various media. He compares his process to creating a musical composition using specific musical instruments or tones to create an abstract ''narrative'.
He began been exhibiting art in his teens in Virginia, and received his BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1983, with a focus on printmaking, drawing and painting.
continued to work in Virginia exhibiting and organizing exhibitions in
exhibited briefly in the East Village, NYC and then began showing and organizing exhibitions in Pittsburgh, PA and Columbus and Youngstown, OH. This led to Pustorino having a few major works included in larger exhibits both at the Butler Institute, and at the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio.
Pustorino moved to the Jersey City area in 1997 and continued to exhibit in venues throughout the U.S., including Odetta Gallery, NYC, and the Jersey City Museum, and has had solo exhibitions with Chambers 916 Gallery in Portland, OR, and recent solo exhibitions in Casa Colombo and Watchung Art Center in NJ.
Pustorino’s large-scale compositions engage concepts of language and pictorialization, through varying systems of mark-making and adopted ‘cultural’ forms, positive/negative space, concepts of unfinished/finished, as well as representational/abstract. His work focuses on invention of form and the optics of color and is created in thematic series produced on various substrates and in various media. He compares his process to creating a musical composition using specific musical instruments or tones to create an abstract ''narrative'.
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