Don Porcaros
latest work consists of his current investigation into the whimsical
possibilities embodied in ideas of animation and contemporary culture,
from the strange worlds of Bosch and Guston to Japanese anime. These
series of sculptures have bodies, legs, posture and personality, and
are highly polychromed with synthetic color, suspending easy assumptions
about time and origin, function and definition. They are frozen in animation,
either laden with the memory of recent activity or pregnant with possibilities
of the yet unknown.
His sculpture references many of the issues he has continued to investigate
over the years, such as archaeology and architectural and cultural fragments.
His sculptures have an enigmatic quality: objects which are difficult
to identify as coming from a specific time or place. As the artist states,
"I am interested in sculpture that sits on that edge of functionality,
only to be disarmed by all the ways in which one could almost put such
an object to use."
Nadine Wasserman, former curator of exhibitions at the Samuel Dorsky
Museum of Art wrote in a recent catalogue essay of Porcaros work,
"By mixing such historic materials as stone and metal with a playful
palette of rubber and enamel paints, Porcaro addresses both past and
future and the timelessness of certain iconic shapes."