Art Gallery to Present the Three Dimensional Work of George Lorio

"George Lorio Sculpture Exhibition"

 

Brownsville, TX – The Art Gallery in the Rusteberg Building is proud to present the sculpture work of George Lorio, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Brownsville.

Professor Lorio has been teaching at the University for 7 years and has held teaching positions at other colleges in North Carolina, Florida, and Michigan. Lorio has much experience exhibiting in various cities nationally in juried, solo, and group exhibitions. His work has been displayed in cities in New York, Virginia, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, and other states. Lorio has been awarded several fellowships and grants, including the "Piedmont Hub Arts Council Grant." "North Carolina Individual Artist Fellowship," and "National Endowment for the Arts/Fine Arts Council of Florida, Individual Artists’ Fellowship."

Lorio’s work is best described in his own words. The following is taken from an older artist statement:

"I use wood as the medium for the works; the process of formation is slow and laborious. The carved surfaces are not renderings but fictions about water. The wood is warm to the touch and I cloth the surface with a skin of black. I am very aware of the grain of the wood like the current of water; the grain provides the strength of the structure. I wish this strength to be subtle, below the surface; hence, I paint them. In all these sculptures, I use a metaphor of natural forms to reflect on my life experiences. My constructed works become poetic allusions to the recognizable attributes of natural shapes. The imagery employs motifs derived from the surrounding landscape embracing myth and allegory. The botanical works allude to the rapid, fleshy growth of seasonal cycles, which have a sinuous organic line quickly formed and responding to the brief opportunity for life."

The show will be opening on March 18, 2008 at 6:30 PM. The last day to view the show will be April 4, 2008. Admission will be free for everyone. Please contact us at (956) 882-7097 for more information or please e-mail us at gallery@utb.edu.

 

Artist Statement:

George Lorio

Born in New Orleans and raised through my teenage years in that city framed my vision of life. It was and continues to be a place of extremes: beauty and decay, religion and ritual, custom and iconoclasm. The spirit of the city embraces an attitude of dispensation in the form of the annual bacchanal of Mardi Gras when the celebrations are exuberate. From that experience, I acquired an excitement for visual matters, colors, forms and even artifacts.

My family moved to Florida with my father’s job transfer in my late adolescence. With that transition, my visual appetite expanded to the sensuous verdure of the semi-tropical landscape. I finished my university education with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of South Florida in Tampa after which I was awarded a number of residency grants funded by the state and federal government, which moved my young family and me around Florida. During those times, I made my art as I reflected on my experience using a metaphor of motifs derived from my surroundings. Natural motifs became more interesting to me. A teaching job in Michigan reduced my color sense in my ruminations on the landscape with the northern winter. Another teaching job in North Carolina returned a benign view of nature as I drew on my observations to make art. Now in Texas, I am seeing another aspect of the land and the culture it supports; I am increasingly fascinated by fabricating water in my sculpture.

Presently, I live near the Rio Grande; the brown green strip of flowing water which divides countries, cultures and landscapes. The differences in lifestyles on the two opposing banks are significant. Water is the vital yet limited nurturance of the region.

The Rio Grande, the US border, is the southern mote for the lower forty-eight states maintained in its present channel by treaty. This side of the river is the haven of the first, second or third generation Mexican-Americans who have made it over. The Mexican side has stratified wealthy elite whose money allows casual access in contrast to a less privileged population whose legal crossings are monitored and temporary or whose illegal passage is covert and strained.

My chosen black surface for water carries with it an ambiguous, obscure or illusive reading. Its darkness suggests murkiness; therefore, is its depth shallow or deep or is its quality clean or polluted? The inference for water colored black can be described as powerful and frightening. Any of these descriptions can apply to the Rio Grande.