Michele Bubacco & Monte Coleman

The Dance of Death was a medieval allegory portraying the universality of death as the inevitable affecting all – high and low, rich and poor, the pious and the blasphemous. While this message, was designed to instill religious fervor, this fatalism encouraged extreme hedonistic and licentious behavior – eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. It is the last dance at the party. The two artists presented here tap into this imagery in very different ways.

Michele Bubacco has a raw, visceral approach to painting, with deliberate strokes and a reductive palette that emphasizes the anguish and despair of the figures. His gestural and almost violent canvases present an implied narrative rife with psychological underpinnings and ambiguous sexuality and behavior. The figurative elements are fragmented, leaving the viewer with only a partial point of entry into the chaotic events seemingly taking place.

Born in 1983 Michele Bubacco is the son of the famous Murano glass artist, Lucio Bubacco, under whom he first learned his craft. From 2002 to 2004 he studied painting in Venice under Alessandro Rossi, before establishing his own studio in that city. In 2011 he presented his monumental painting Crimson Orchestra during the Venice Biennale.

Well-known in New York’s interior design circles for his consummate craftsmanship in working with textiles, Monte Coleman has followed a personal passion for the ceramic arts:

Despite the seemingly macabre subject matter, Coleman’s skulls and bones possess a whimsical quality that is inviting, rather than threatening. Many of the skeletal shapes are nestled within or resting upon exquisitely turned bowls and vases. Glazes alternate between delicate shades in neutral tonalities and solid, semi-matte blues, greens, oranges, blacks. Each work is unique, with some pieces demonstrating a complex intricacy and others simplified, monolithic in shape

Born in Lebanon, Missouri, Coleman studied art and architecture at the University of Missouri. After working in California, he moved to New York in 1980 where he currently resides.

Curated by Howard Rutkowski and Mary Dinaburg