Carmelo Midili 

Residency: October-November 2010

About the Artist:
Carmelo Midili was born in Messina, Italy and lives and works in Brooklyn. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy (1995). He has studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Rome (2005) and at The Art Students League of New York.

He has had solo exhibitions at Artspace, Richmond, VA, Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA, Chi-Lin Gallery, Meredith, NH, and Provincia Regionale di Messina, Italy (2005). His work has been reviewed in Flash Art Online Magazine. He has been awarded a Vermont Studio Center Residency and Chashama Studio Program. He also has held the Xavier Gonzales and Ethel Edwards Travel Grant, (2009) and the Nessa Cohen Grant (2008).

Artist Statement:
My work is comprised of large-scaled, three-dimensional pieces. I create the supporting structure from wood and then give the piece its ultimate form by cutting and shaping used canvas panels and gluing them together.

Through my work, I am not particularly interested in creating 'objects', my intention is to create space: a space that implies that what we see may only be a part of something much bigger, space which reaches deep and beyond without end in sight.

My works are connections between the room where the sculpture is situated (which has defined, tangible limits), and an unknown world where limits and dimensions do not exist.

Project Description:
The work I created at Sculpture Space is a site specific installation composed of 3 large–scaled sculptures, which gives the idea of a flux crossing the room.

We are no longer inside a room with walls and ceilings as limits but find ourselves in a limitless space. I create my work to carry us beyond the walls and to pierce the limits of our imagination.

With my work I also wish to investigate other aspects of the world: specifically the human and sociological aspects. The themes of my intended works are: insecurity, fear, the self-criticizing artist who prefers to discard an artwork which he deems poorly done and unworthy of further efforts. It is at this point that i want adapts the “human error.” I recover the discarded canvas of the self-criticizing artist which, in turn becomes one of the many anonymous artists that we later find in my sculptures."