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Current Issue: Volume 130, Number 1 July 14, 2009
Features


Exhibition helps to relieve stress

Posted 04-17-2002 at 7:02PM

Scott Robertson
Senior Reporter

With final exams approaching and projects soon due, this time of year can be very stressful for Rensselaer students. To help relieve some of that tension, you can stop by Sage Lab’s Vertical Gallery during this month or next month to see the paintings of artist Andrew Piedilato. His works will be on display at Sage until May 18. Piedilato, a 27-year-old painter from New York City, is known for his large, vigorous, and colorful abstract paintings. “The style that runs through [my] paintings comes from my struggle to get an image while obliterating any obvious subject,” said Piedailato. “Some of the paintings have distinct parts: cartoon boards, chest cavities, and fleshy attachments, and seas and skies; all stuck together and falling apart, shifting around [in] a kind of churning motion.”

Larry Kagan, professor of arts and a sculptor, convinced Rensselaer to host the collection because “however Andy describes his work, however much we may try to put this sort of excitement in words, the work is simply original and compelling and needs to be seen.”

Originally from Georgia, Piedailato earned a master’s in fine arts from the Pratt Institute in 2002. During his artist career, Piedaliato’s paintings have been shown at the OK Harris Gallery in Soho, NY, at One Buckhead Plaza in Atlanta, Ga., at Robert Matre Gallery in Atlanta, Ga., at the Lamar School of Art in Athens, Ga., and at the Pinnacle Gallery in Atlanta, Ga.

“I rarely start a painting from a preconceived idea or image. I usually just start with a loosely gestural figure, painting mostly with my hands,” said Piedailato “I hope for an accident that can be repeated or elaborated until I can get a form or space that has the right kind of content. Content for me is usually an indirect product of what happens while trying to capture something else ... The way I work, I have to take chances if I’m going to get anything good.”



Posted 04-17-2002 at 7:02PM
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