Frank Damiano
“Frank
Damiano’s work has always had an emblematic side.
In his early collages and paintings, objects were presented
rather as one finds them displayed in traditional heraldry.
They are symbolic, rather than actual.
As his work has developed, he has shown a greater interest in, and a closer contact with, observed reality, but the objects included in his still lifes continue to function, not only as things in themselves, but as archetypes. This remains true even when they are drawn from a range of domestic items familiar to any American household.
Damiano makes use of items of this sort, but less assertive ones – a sock-monkey, for instance, or a balloon with a smiley face. In his hands, these become emblems of contemporary American domesticity – the small change of family life in a highly industrialized society, where mass consumption is no longer a choice, but simply a given.
The real difference from the work of these two committed realists is, however, that Damiano’s still life are frequently treated as if they are quotations, rather than directly observed visual events, presented for their own sake. In Pink Elephant, for instance, the still life featuring this kitsch china or glass ornament occupies between two-thirds annd three-quarters of the picture space. To the right there is a neutral strip of canvas, with rapidly drawn personages apparently borrowed from comic strips.
Since the still life also features a classical statuette the painting bec omes a complex dialogue between different modes of representation, and different levels of visual culture.
In other words Damiano here, as elsewhere, deliberately subverts established ideas about realism in order to engage the spectator in a dialogue not about how things look, but about the different ways in which they can be depicted. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – an essentially Conceptual artist disguised as a traditional realist.”
Excerpt from Essay by Edward Lucie-Smith
As his work has developed, he has shown a greater interest in, and a closer contact with, observed reality, but the objects included in his still lifes continue to function, not only as things in themselves, but as archetypes. This remains true even when they are drawn from a range of domestic items familiar to any American household.
Damiano makes use of items of this sort, but less assertive ones – a sock-monkey, for instance, or a balloon with a smiley face. In his hands, these become emblems of contemporary American domesticity – the small change of family life in a highly industrialized society, where mass consumption is no longer a choice, but simply a given.
The real difference from the work of these two committed realists is, however, that Damiano’s still life are frequently treated as if they are quotations, rather than directly observed visual events, presented for their own sake. In Pink Elephant, for instance, the still life featuring this kitsch china or glass ornament occupies between two-thirds annd three-quarters of the picture space. To the right there is a neutral strip of canvas, with rapidly drawn personages apparently borrowed from comic strips.
Since the still life also features a classical statuette the painting bec omes a complex dialogue between different modes of representation, and different levels of visual culture.
In other words Damiano here, as elsewhere, deliberately subverts established ideas about realism in order to engage the spectator in a dialogue not about how things look, but about the different ways in which they can be depicted. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – an essentially Conceptual artist disguised as a traditional realist.”
Excerpt from Essay by Edward Lucie-Smith