The multimedia work of New York based artist Craig LaRotonda depicts a world infused with macabre imagery and surreal characters, featured here on our blog. Though his work is highly stylized, featuring modern cyborgs and other iconoclastic creatures drawn in the iconic style of Renaissance and Byzantine Art, the artist pulls his inspiration from somewhere familiar to him. Often, his ideas come from his own psyche and our human existence, such as birth, growth, emotions, conflict, and mortality.
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New York based artist Craig LaRotonda creates multimedia works in a unique style reminiscent of Renaissance and Byzantine art. His detailed and layered paintings have a darkness that is matched by his sculptural pieces that look like religious relics. Opening September 4th, he will exhibit a new series of paintings and sculptures in “A Consortium of Lost Souls” at Stranger Factory in New Mexico.
Cradled within the atmospheric darkness of the newlyrenovated Last Rites Gallery in NYC was an intense convergence of new works byartists Chet Zar and Craig LaRotonda. While Zar’s creatures took onconfrontational poses in the tightly focused portraits, LaRotonda explored the7 deadly sins via darkly portrayed primates. While both artists’ oeuvresfocused on macabre imagery, Zar’s works exhibited an incredible control oflight and color while LaRotonda employed a unique style that made the paintingsappear like relics exhumed from old churches. View more of the works and photos from the openingnight after the jump.
Last weekend, Santa Monica’s Copro Gallery debuted their exhibition “Conjoined V,” guest curated by artist Chet Zar. True to Zar’s own dark, surreal aesthetic, the annual sculpture show features a variety of emerging and established artists with a penchant for all things creepy, curious, and bizarre. Kazu Tsuji’s gigantic, silicone bust of Salvador Dali, Jessica Joslin’s metal-adorned taxidermy animals, and surreal imaginings by Craig LaRotonda and Jim McKenzie are among the myriad of bold and pop culture-inspired works in the show. Take a look at some highlights from “Conjoined V” below and see it in person through February 14.
New York’s Last Rites Gallery will celebrate five years of exhibiting artists on the shadowy side of the contemporary art spectrum this weekend with a large group show. The “5 Year Anniversary Show” will feature artists they’ve worked with in the past and look forward to continuing relationships with in the future. A few of the exhibiting artists have graced the pages of our print issues, including Naoto Hattori (Hi-Fructose Vol. 7), Yoko d’Holbachie (Hi-Fructose Vol. 6), Chet Zar (Hi-Fructose Vol. 11), Charlie Immer (Hi-Fructose Collected 3) and more, as well as Hi-Fructose co-founder Annie Owens. Other exhibiting artists include Matthew Bone, Rory Coyne, Santiago Caruso, Peter Gric, Anthony Pontius, Billy Norrby, Nick Baxter, Craig Larotonda, Menton3, Christopher Conte and more. Take a look at our preview of the exhibition after the jump and check out the show April 13 – May 18.
This Friday, La Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles will debut “The Macabre Show,” a group show that treads on the more shadowy territories of new contemporary art. Featuring the works of Jasmine Worth, Steven Daily, Scott Holloway, Miso, Craig LaRotonda, Myron Conan Dyal, Mavis Leahy and Gail Potocki, the show features an extensive series of works by each artist loosely united by the overarching theme. While Jasmine Worth’s “Dark Mother” series explores a dark side of Catholic Virgin imagery, Craig LaRotonda toys with cyborgs in “The Rise of the Robosapiens.” Take a look at our preview courtesy of La Luz de Jesus Gallery.