Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Chuck Arnoldi


Spending time with Chuck Arnoldi at his Venice studio was such an honor. A group of us met for a visit and he graciously showed us around his workplace, while he discussed his process. He’s an amazing artist that produces a substantial amount of work. In other words he produces new work every day. I found him a warm, energetic and focused artist. He seems capable of finding a balance between his past and current work as well as where his process may be headed in the future. Arnoldi is a well established California (LA) artist who working primarily in painting.
Earlier in his career he began as a sculptor using stick figures created from pronged tree branches found in Ohio. In the 80's he began working with larger pieces of wood, juxtaposing them against canvases in brightly colored hues. The form and abstraction paintings were wildly successful and he liked the 3 dimensionality of the work. As recently as 2000 he transferred his love of using wood as a base, to canvases to create larger works called block paintings. These multi shaped canvases are smoothly melded together and sometimes jut forward unevenly with bold colors that move the eye from color to color, shape to size. These pieces are clearly three dimensional continuing his study of color and form.
Recently he is fragmenting his paintings using canvases mathematically designed to create move movement with the work and even more muted and saturated colors spread over the uneven shaped canvases.

No comments:

Post a Comment