AUTOCYCLES: New Paintings and Works on Paper by Matt Carone

Matt Carone. Autocycles1, 2008. Acrylic/canvas. 48”x60”. Courtesy of ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries, Coral Gables.

ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries

March - May 2009

Reception: May 1, 2009, 7-10 pm

New works by Matt Carone, whose figurative abstractions sometimes bore suggestions of his 45-year friendship with Chilean master artist Roberto Matta, have turned onto a different route in the one-person exhibition titled “Autocycles” at ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables.

His latest paintings, perhaps closer to Jackson Pollock or Cy Twombly than Matta’s animated stick figures and skeletal machines, step toward the path of patterned abstraction without venturing onto it.

Like Pollock, whose lyrical loops carried the private rhythms of an artist enamored of dance, and Twombly, whose staccato, sketchy lines reflect a different temperament, Carone’s inspirations flow directly from a subconscious informed by a lifetime of association with some of the century’s most important artists and their works.

“I begin with shapes, forms and gestures that are completely led by the subconscious,” states Carone, adding that after he begins to recognize the emerging image, he fine-tunes it into a finished composition. ”It’s not unlike automatic writing,” he adds, “except that it is the intuitive image I seek as a consequence of the gesture, rather that the essence of the written word.”

George S. Bolge, Executive Director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art, where Carone had a one-person exhibition in 2002, wrote that: “No other contemporary artist possesses such a reciprocity between drawing and writing; with him, the visual and the verbal are interchangeable, both equally oriented toward lasting discovery through description, keen analysis through observation.”

Bolge, who observed that, “gusts of euphoria sweep through Carone’s art,” further noted that ”Carone’s work echoes with a wide range of modernist experiments. Not only is Carone identified with the pioneer generation of Abstract Expressionists, but also critics have seen affinities with Surrealism in his work, as well as development parallel to those of the CoBrA group.”

Carone became involved with Abstract Expressionism when he was only 13 and his brother, the well-known painter Nicolas Carone, was studying with the legendary master Hans Hofman. Hofman asked the young Carone to model for him and his brother, and he found the two painters’ interpretation of the figure fascinating.

Earlier paintings by Carone, an accomplished violinist, often suggest ensembles of musical instruments, particularly those with strings. Like the drip paintings of Pollock, these works, with their powerful sense of movement and lyrical compositions, sometimes seem like musical passages captured on canvas or paper. 

The current paintings present us with Carone’s own calligraphic vocabulary, more patterned than gestural, yet still suggesting music more than literature.

“We are privileged to share these insights into the mind of an extraordinary, multi-talented artist who has discovered a unique visual statement,” says Virginia Miller, owner and director of Greater Miami’s longest-established contemporary fine art gallery. “These works graphically demonstrate fresh viewpoints can still be found in painting.”

ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries?169 Madeira Avenue.?Coral Gables (Miami), Florida 33134?Phone 305 444 4493 / Fax 305 444 9844  www.virginiamiller.com