RICH TOMASELLO

Rich Tomasello is from Buffalo, New York.  He earned a BFA in Illustration from the University at Buffalo and an MA in Art Education from Buffalo State College.  Tomasello has had work commissioned by the New York State Council on the Arts and is a 2021 NYSCA DEC grant recipient.  His mixed-media work has been featured on The Huffington Post and is part of the permanent collection of the Burchfield Penney Art Center (Buffalo, NY). He has exhibited at the Arnot Art Museum (Elmira, NY), Erie Art Museum (Erie, PA), and the Memorial Art Gallery (Rochester, NY).  Tomasello has also exhibited his work, by invitation, at a series of politically themed art exhibitions that took place at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, CA, the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, PA, and Into Action in downtown Los Angeles, CA.  His work has been exhibited alongside Robert Longo, Swoon, Shepard Fairey, and Guerrilla Girls.

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My work is influenced by the violence and voyeurism of the world.  Gun violence and mass shootings have become commonplace in the United States.  Lockdown drills practiced daily by American school children have become the norm.  Cellphone technology allows us to capture and share violence in real time.  For the last several years I have made large-scale plaster sculptures, built from cardboard and foam armatures, as well as slip-cast ceramic forms.  I use plaster because it is strong yet also vulnerable and prone to cracking.  My work depicts oppressive icons and also yearns for a more innocent past.