Quint Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of LIGHTENING, the sixth solo exhibition for Roman de Salvo at Quint Gallery in the past twenty years since 1995. LIGHTENING is an exhibition of sculptures that resist the dead weight and inanimate nature of their materials through an infusion of light and a sense of lightness. The artworks include new alabaster-and-light sculptures and wood constructions. The opening reception is on Saturday, March 14th from 6-8pm and is open to the public; the artist will be in attendance.
New works on view in LIGHTENING consist of a series of biomorphic alabaster sculptures with incandescent light bulbs inserted, and sculptures made of tree branches that are composed with the precision of a master wood-worker. Farm to Table Lamp, made of pepper tree roots and branches, is an homage to the idea of the direct involvement of the process of making things, from harvest to finished product. Sourced from nature, the alabaster, wood branches, and pepper tree roots are not perfect materials from a craftsman's standpoint. De Salvo negotiates their flaws to shape them into elaborate domestic objects that express some aspect of the natural forms of the raw materials.
LIGHTENING also marks the twentieth anniversary of FURNISHINGS,de Salvo's first solo exhibition at Quint Gallery. For the occasion, the artist is revisiting some of the themes of that exhibition in which he transformed the gallery into a furniture showroom with a variety of ironic takes on furnishing conventions. A centerpiece of that show was Small Fireplace,a miniature stone masonry fireplace complete with real fire. De Salvo will be showing Second Act,a life-size enlargement of the original Small Fireplacedrawn on birch panels using a wood-burning technique.
Roman de Salvo lives and works in San Diego since graduating with an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions globally including the Whitney Biennial, the Public Art Fund New York, and The Orange County Museum of Art. His work belongs in the public collections on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Recent public commissions include Seven for Seven Trees in San Jose in 2010 and The Riparium, now on view in Ruocco Park, San Diego, completed in 2012.
