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AUGUST VENTIMIGLIA - NEW DRAWINGS Please click images above for full view.
About August Ventimiglia
For his first solo exhibit in Maine August Ventimiglia returns home. Born in Portland in 1972,
he studied at Syracuse University and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania
before returning for postgraduate studies at the Maine College of Art. Working with
materials that include, charcoal and black chalk either on paper, floor surfaces or directly on walls Ventimiglia creates minimalist or reductive images ranging in scale from small to monumental. This exhibit includes
a large-scale site-specific wall drawing reflecting his installation at the 2011
Biennial at the Portland Museum of Art. Ventimiglia has exhibited widely in
New England including the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Tufts University Art Gallery,
deCordova museum & Sculpture Garden and in Philadelphia at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. He resides and maintains a studio in
Wellesley, MA.
Portland Phoenix April 6, 2011
Line Tensity by Annie Larmon
August Ventimiglia isolates simple gestures and records their impact and reverberations, magnifying the grace of the adjusting
and settling physical world, and implying larger social and philosophical commentary. Using saturated earthy materials that are
both industrial and fragile, the snapping of a line, the grinding of chalk, the wearing of sandpaper, and the settling of dust
are captured and made permanent. In a show of drawings of various scales at MECA's June Fitzpatrick Gallery, 30 recent works show
Ventimiglia's deliberation over severe control and chaos, illuminating the gusts and whispers that reside somewhere between.
Breeding minimalist formal themes with the documentation of
action, the artist meditates on process and materiality. Simple geometric forms are used to investigate and express the
results of formal and material experiments with shifting variables.
In "Untitled (yellow radial)," a circle is sculpted from ochre chalk dust applied to a construction snap-line and
cracked against paper at scrupulously equal radial distances. The varying rigor with which the line is snapped imprints
corresponding amounts of residue onto the pristine paper, building an architecture of vibrating straight lines cutting
through billowy or explosive settled excess chalk. The messiness of the industrial action is contained by a stark negative
space, defining the form, rendering it weightless, and pushing against it. A collection of dust sits precariously in the
concentrated center of the round, quietly provoking disruption and threatening to just drift away.
This tension is prevalent throughout Ventimiglia's work: between tightly drawn lines, the strain of a snap-line scar and
airy torrents of dust, in an exhaustive intervention of materials, and to an extent, in the acknowledgement of the hand
and suggestion of imperfection. The artist uses tape to build his forms, resulting in sharp, clean delineations of space.
When abutting the unadulterated white, areas of negative space where dust is allowed to settle appear dirty and evince
their dusty creation. A 36-by-138-inch site-specific wall drawing, "Untitled (rise in black)," best exposes the artist's
process. An ascending scalene triangle built using the snap-line procedure, a form and method explored at length in the
exhibit, is inflated and allowed to expand and breathe in the gallery. The irregularities and patterns that emerge from
the repetition of the snapping action and disparate reactions to the paper develop a vibrant texture and rhythmic
quality only suggested in the smaller works, and emphasize the performative element of Ventimiglia's practice.
The installation of this wall piece involved several days of taping off, measuring out, and wielding the
snap-line, and required a large plastic tent to contain all the residual black chalk powder.
Ventimiglia, coming from a family of sculptors and architects, clearly has a meticulous eye, trained hand,
and command for formal composition. What makes his work most compelling, however, is his concurrent embrace
of the unplanned and the incidental. Where his rich "Stitches" in Yves Klein blue would stand on their own
as carefully considered formal line drawings, the delicately contained constellations of chalk dust that could
only be composed by the random forces of nature pushing and pulling them as they descend to the paper are what
the eye spends time with. By documenting the unintentional, Ventimiglia pays respect to the repercussions
of his actions, which, here, are beautiful.
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