Antonio Criscimagna's debut consists of figurative works. Criscimagna is a creator, rather than painter. Adrenalin and instinct make these unplanned paintings about basic human intimacy and companionship very effective, some more than others. He produces large, untitled paintings (most in the range of 60-inches-by-42-inches) in a hunter-gatherer vein, foraging for paint tubes in his boiler room studio cave. Thick layers of black acrylic paint frame stark grey and white nude human forms. The simple effect is eerie and calm.
Criscimagna doesn't use models, and so his figures are gutteral and take on earthy forms. Soft lines, abstract proportions, and featureless oval heads all recall a rhythmic, organic, Old Stone Age sophistication, yet elegantly convey contemporary beauty and man/woman/earth unity. The 2000 A.D. angular bodies look chiseled from stone, vaguely reminiscent of Cycladic marble idols c. 2000 B.C. Two biblically themed pieces push his human abstractions to obvious Picasso proportions.
Overlapping shapes energetically engulf each other to perfectly portray Eve emerging from Adam's rib. Distorted lines create the readily recognizable story in an effective modern icon manner.
Through June 30, 2001; (317) 685-9634.
NUVO Newsweekly, May 31 - June 7, 2001
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Mary Lee Pappas
