John Torreano

Bio

For the past 50 years John Torreano has challenged such modernist dogma as essentialism like the flatness of painting or the idea of art as a container of ideas. He has pursued a concept of meaning based on a "multiplicity of points-of-view" or as he would say; "There are many stars. There are many gods."   In his effort to expand these boundaries he has enlisted a wide variety of unconventional materials and means: panel paintings, wood column paintings, plywood gem shapes, wood balls, etc., all in an effort to reconstruct a contemporary formalist vocabulary.  Armed with these tools, a great wit, and a physical sensitivity to color and material, his work confronts the viewer with many of the oxymoronic binaries of contemporary art and culture.  (In addition to object making, Mr.Torreano has given many comedic performances to that same end.)

 

Nationally and internationally recognized, he has exhibited his work in numerous Museums and Galleries and his achievements have been honored with grants including the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts and a Nancy Graves Foundation Grant for Visual Artists. He presently teaches for NYU in Abu Dhabi.