Sebastian Martorana

If you can’t make it to your own art show, the next best thing is having some of that art featured on the gallery’s homepage. Having a curator take the time to make sense of said work is also a plus:

Chosen by Edward Holland:

 As an artist that chooses to make stone his primary medium, Sebastian Martorana’s pop-oriented sculptures and abstract wall works can bring to mind images of great monoliths, monumental arches, vaulted ceilings, Neolithic totems and tombstones.  The works are neither classical, post-minimal nor post-modern in their usage of the sculptural materials of antiquity. Martorana chooses instead to be self-reflexive in his choice of subject matter, looking to the objects and actions of his everyday life for inspiration.  The blank wall reliefs and pop-ish everyday objects, rendered in stone, are Un-commissioned Memorials to the artist’s experiences, loves, phobias, celebrating the vagaries of daily existence.

Sebastian Martorana received his BFA in illustration from Syracuse University, where he also studied sculpture.  After graduating he became a fulltime apprentice in a stone shop outside of Washington, DC before coming to Baltimore to earn his MFA in sculpture at MICA.  His current studio is part of the stone shop of Hilgartner Natural Stone, Co. in downtown Baltimore.  Mr. Martorana’s work was recently selected to be featured in “40 Under 40,” the 40th Anniversary exhibition of Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The artist lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

The above is a portion of the 80WSE press release  on their website, the full 80WSE press release can be read here.

80WSE Presents, curated by Peter Campus, Michael Cohen, Edward Holland and Hugh O’Rourke;
November 29th – December 22nd, 2011
Opening Reception: Tuesday, November 29th, 6 – 8 pm
Artists: Paul Carney, Max Gimblett, Sebastian Martorana, Matt Quinn, Viktoria Sorochinski, Dan Torop, Ivette Zighelboim