Birds by Rimer Cardillo

prints and boxes

Pear box with bronze, copper plate and amethyst

Chace-Randall Gallery proudly presents Birds by Rimer Cardillo, an exhibition of prints and boxes, May 11 – June 24. A reception of the Artist is Saturday, May 12, 5 – 7 p.m.

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1944, Rimer Cardillo is an internationally recognized artist who has had solo exhibitions throughout Latin America, Sweden and the United States.  He has participated in group exhibitions and important print biennials all over the world, from Western Europe and the United States to Eastern Europe, South Africa, and the Far East.  His work is in museums and public collections, including those of major international institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York; the Chicago Art Institute; the Tate Modern in London; and museums in Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia and Norway.  Cardillo's many awards include fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (United States), the Pollock Krasner Foundation, and prizes from national exhibitions in Uruguay and biennials in Poland and Venice.

Cardillo’s current exhibition at Chace-Randall is comprised of his gorgeously rendered bird prints and carved boxes. In the Birds of Gardiner series (silkscreen prints) as many as eight colors of ink have been applied to create the rich texture of the final image — and a single color could be passed through the screen more than once to create a dozen or more layers of ink on each sheet. The exhibition also juxtaposes the ancient art of woodcuts with modern photographic technology.

The boxes contain bronze bird sculpture, copper and brass plate engravings, and unique objects. “This new series of boxes encapsulate environments, objects, and images that I came into contact with and imagined during my travels in the Amazon Rain Forest and in the landscape of New York's Hudson Valley. The etching and engraving brass and copper plates that I produce for printmaking are included in the boxes. In this case the plates show a metalsmith refinement and they work as an art object by themselves,” says the artist, adding that the intent is for the viewer to “experience the unity of concept and craft as an expression of the human knowledge.”

“Rimer Cardillo’s work is truly inspired. It conjures a world where art and nature, history and the future of our world, pulse concurrently. The response is poignantly visceral, as well as cerebral,” says gallery proprietor and curator Zoe Randall.

Cardillo received an M.F.A. from the National School of Fine Arts in Uruguay in 1968, and studied in Germany at the Weissenssee School of Art and Architecture in Berlin and the Leipzig School of Graphic Arts. His work is inspired by the work Joseph Beuys and Doris Garcia, printmakers from Japan, medieval European artwork, and the cultures of the Incas and Mayans.

He currently resides in New York City and the Hudson Valley, where he pursues his interests in art, his family, and the preservation of environments and cultures.

Please call 845.676.4901 or email zoe@chacerandallgallery.comfor more information.