"New Line Continued" 2018
Oil on canvas
77' x 101' inches / 196 x 257 cm
Carmelo Blandino
Born to Sicilian parents in Tübingen, Germany, and with a childhood spent in the cities of Montreal and Modica, Sicily, Carmelo Blandino’s life journey has spanned continents and oceans. It has now brought him to the US, where he has studios and residences in both Connecticut and Wisconsin. Blandino grows his inspirational vocabulary by taking the essentialness of Home to each and every place he has made his bed, wherever he has set up easel and wielded paintbrush.
Blandino studied art and design in Montreal and enjoyed success as freelance illustrator to advertising agencies, designers and architects. A next step, borne of both logic and calling, demanded that Blandino turn his focus on the creation of his own artistic legacy. The result is a fast growing, ever-morphing, highly personal and spiritually guided oeuvre. Informed heavily by Blandino’s multicultural heritage and imbued with a sensual, expressionistic exuberance, Carmelo’s paintings are renowned for their immediacy and intensity – colour, movement, and combustible forms display elemental deconstruction, rebuilt into alluring visions of harmonious appeal. The transcendental narrative, which lies at the heart of Carmelo’s work, is achieved via a symbolic abstraction of the flowers, landscapes, and faces, he renders. These images speak intimately and empathically, brilliant manifestations of what Blandino calls his “unconscious to unconscious communication.”
His works have been acquired by the Brenau Museum in Gainseville Georgia and exhibited at the Baker Museum in Naples. With an avid following of not only collectors but also student artists, Blandino pays forward his gifts as teacher and guide, conducting workshops in drawing and painting. In homage to his forefathers and in service to a deeply held personal mantra, Carmelo Blandino endeavors as artist to speak through his work – heart to hand, then to the eye, then on into very the heart of the beholder.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2016 Solo show, Galerie Sono, South Norwalk, CT, USA. Florida Contemporary – Exhibition, Baker Museum of Artis, Naples FL
2015 Solo Show, Galerie De Bellefeuille, Montreal, qc Carmelo Blandino & Hunt Slonem Kindred Spirits, Coats Wright Fine Arts, Carmel, IN, USA. Solo Show, The Art of the Garden, Jane Eckert Fine Art and Consulting Solo Exhibition, Tew Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA. Solo Show, Candy Flowers, Thomas Riley Studio, Naples, FL, USA Spring Group Show, Thomas Riley Studio, Naples, FL, USA
2014 Solo Exhibition New Beginnings, Couture Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden Baker Museum, Florida Contemporary, FL, USA Lecture and Exhibition” creativity is Natural, Von Leibig, Naples Art Association, Naples, FL, USA (Solo exhibit) Suspended Dialogues, Thomas Riley Studio, FL, USA
2013 Solo Exhibition, Rebirth, Sono Gallery Norwalk, CT, USA Art Basel Miami, Wynwood Walls, Miami, FL, USA Gallery Sono/ Connecticut JLD Design Showroom, Café Des Artistes, San Francisco, CA, USA Hall-Barnett Gallery, New Orleans, LA, USA
2012 Miami art Basel, Wynwood walls, Miami, FL, USA Solo show, The flowering of consciousness, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montreal, QC Group show, Arcadia Fine Arts, Four Seasons hotel, New York, NY, USA
2011 En Masse, Primary flight, Wynwood wall, Miami, FL The Earth Laughs in Flowers, Couture Gallery, Stockholm
2010 29th Founders Show, Von Leibeig art center, Naples, FL, USA Art 2010, Group show, Galerie De Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC The Earth Laughs in Flowers, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC
2009 Art 2009, Group show Galerie De Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Breathe, Group show, Judith Liegeois, Naples, FL, USA Nature 2009, Group show, Galerie De Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Fall Show, Wallace Gallery, Calgary, AB Third on Canvas, Von Liebig Center, Naples, FL, USA Have a Seat II, Naples Museum of Art, Naples, FL, USA
2008 Palmbeach 3, West Palm Beach, Florida, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, ON, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Recent Works, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC 2007 Recent Works, Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, BC Becoming One, Naples, FL, USA Palmbeach 3, West Palm Beach, FL, USA ART
2007 Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, ON Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC
2006 ART 2006, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, ON, Vivo - Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto, ON Small works - Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, BC Solo show - Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2005 Figura, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Landscapes and Florals, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Chicago Contemporary and Classic, Chicago, IL, USA, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC ART
2005 Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Art for Life, Casey House foundation, Toronto, ON
2004 The Painted Gift, Hubert Gallery, New York, NY, USA Small Works, Bau Xi Gallery, Toronto, ON ART 2004, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC Art for Life, Casey House foundation, Toronto, ON Circa 700, Bau-Xi Gallery, Toronto, ON
2003 (Pausa), Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto, ON Galerie De Bellefeuille. Montreal, QC
2002 Gallerie Simon Blais, Montreal, QC Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto, ON Musée des baux-arts de Montréal, Montreal, QC New Canadian Painting Royal Bank of Canada, Place Ville Marie, Montreal, QC New Canadian Painting Competition, Royal Bank of Canada Exhibit, Ottawa, ON Viva Italia, Holt Renfrew, Montréal, ON
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grafika Magazine, numero 68, mars 2001, Carmelo Blandino illustrateur, Le Talent Partagé
Corriere Italiano, May 6th 2002, L’Encan per Santa Cabrini, un appuntamento divertente da non mancare

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