WORKS ON PAPER BY RICHARD CARBONI FEATURED IN SOLO SHOW AT WILLIAM PATERSON UNIVERSITY

Richard Carboni, an artist whose works rely on the interplay of landscape, abstraction and symbolic form, presents a one-person show of recent works on paper in the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University in Wayne from October 27 through November 26, 2003. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. A reception for the exhibit will be held on Wednesday, October 29 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the Galleries.

Carboni’s exhibit features approximately 20 small works on paper selected from a larger body of work produced between 1995 and 2003; none of the pieces have been previously exhibited. Painted primarily in acrylic, the works sometimes include heavy textural elements built from cloth, paint and molded forms; other include painted passages and relief elements that were created on, and transferred from, other surfaces.

"Carboni’s symbols remain deliberately schematic," says the art critic Eleanor Heartney. "His constructed paintings walk the line between reduction and metaphor."

According to Carboni, by combining divergent elements of landscape, abstraction and symbolism, "I hope to create an art of disjuncture that is poetic in its ambivalence. In the end," he says, "revealing the artifice of painting is as necessary as creating the illusions."

Carboni, a resident of Montclair, has exhibited his works in numerous solo shows in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., and in group shows at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Butler Institute of Art in Youngstown, Ohio among many others. His works are included in numerous public and private collections. A graduate of Hunter College, Carboni earned a master of fine arts degree at Pratt Institute, and he has received grants from the Ariana Foundation for the Arts and the Ford Foundation.

The exhibit is one of three shows on view concurrently in the Ben Shahn Galleries. On view in the Court Gallery is "Objects of Power," an exhibition of ritual objects selected from the University’s African collection. Paintings by Alison Weld are on view in the South Gallery.

This exhibit is made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For additional information, please call the Ben Shahn Galleries at William Paterson University, 973-720-2654.

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For Further Information, contact:

Mary Beth Zeman, Director, Public Relations 973-720-2966

10/23/03