PAUL FABOZZI

Biography

Paul Fabozzi is a visual artist based in New York, USA. His paintings and works on paper have been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome, London, Busan and beyond. His work is included in numerous private and public collections, including the Weatherspoon Art Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, Neuberger Museum of Art, Frost Museum of Art, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art and New York Public Library. Awards include a fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Café Royal Cultural Foundation. Fabozzi edited an anthology of writings on contemporary art - titled "Artists, Critics, Context: Readings in and around American art since 1945" published by Prentice-Hall - and is currently Professor of Fine Arts at St. John's University in New York City.

Education

University of Pennsylvania, Weitzman School of Design, MFA, 1993
Alfred University, School of Art and Design, BFA, 1988
Cortona, Italy, program with the University of Georgia at Athens, 1989
Siena, Italy, program with SUNY Buffalo, 1987

Artist Statement

“For many years, my creative process has started with walks in cities and specific engagements with architectural space. The shapes, colors, textures, and other sensory input I absorb during these encounters become the starting points for my works on paper and paintings. Far from literal renderings of these places and spaces, my finished works are a realization situated along an axis between the physical experience of a location and the creative act of transformation.

My work as an artist is motivated by the desire to articulate new visual approaches to understanding the fundamental connections among navigation, perception and consciousness. Inspired by on-site investigations of specific architectural spaces, my recent paintings and works on paper explore the dynamics of visual movement and its relation to fracture, overlay, and weight distribution. The process of translating a fully sensorial engagement into a static painting poses many questions, such as: How can painting evoke the physical sensations and conceptual associations one has while navigating dynamic spaces that can’t be reduced to purely visual elements? By suspending a temporal experience within a singular image, my paintings and drawings offer an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which bodily experience is overlaid at every turn with informational and mental pulsations. Navigating cities excites my senses; the process of drawing and painting has allowed me to construct a visual language that enables me to understand aspects of these encounters that I can then see in existence outside of myself. Inevitably, I internalize my mode of creation, which in turn effects my next set of encounters with the world.

Each of us, facilitated by our lived experiences and acquired knowledge, constructs unique ways of activating the world around us. The depth of our activation and the processes by which we assign meaning to the aspects we attend to is the basis of our understanding. For me, to construct a schema of engagement with a place is to set in motion the process of image making. By extension, I aspire to make work that reminds us of our essential human need to actively establish connections to our physical world." - Paul Fabozzi

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo shows

The Architecture of Perception, Works on Paper 2018-22, G. W. Einstein Company, viewing room through Artsy, April 6 to May 31, 2022.
Place, Translation, Variation, Davis Originals, online through Artsy, July 16 to August 12, 2020.
Place, Translation, Variation, Lycoming College Art Gallery, Williamsport, PA; January 25 to February 23, 2019.
Foundations: An Exhibition Featuring Works from Paul Fabozzi’s Curved Locator and Site Translations, Seraphin Gallery at The Yard, Philadelphia, PA; June to December 2017.
Curved Locators, Seraphin Gallery Philadelphia, PA; December 15, 2016 to January 19, 2017.
Site Translations, L.G. Tripp Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; September 14 to October 20, 2012.
Spectral Variants, L.G. Tripp Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; April 30 to May 29, 2010.
Spectral Variants: New Large Works, Atrium Gallery at 153 East 53^rdStreet, New York, NY; October 6 to November 30, 2009.
Lines of Regression, University of Pennsylvania, Kelly Writers House Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; October 17 to November 19, 2007.
Data Walks: The Paintings, Gallery Siano, Philadelphia, PA; November 3 to 26, 2006.
Data Walks: The Installation, Carbon 14, Philadelphia, PA; November 3 to December 17, 2006.
Le voci della pietra: Photographs 1998–2001, Polmone Pulsante Gallery, Rome, Italy; June 7 to 25, 2003.
Rome: The Layers of Memory, Parallels Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; March 7 to April 19, 2003.
The Rome Series, The School of Architecture Gallery, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA; October 16 to 28, 2000.
Marcature/Markings, Polmone Pulsante Gallery, Rome, Italy; June 7 to 28, 2000.
Drawings, Polmone Pulsante Gallery, Rome, Italy; June 7 to 28, 1999.

Selected Collections

Bank of America
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)
Fidelity Investments
Forest City Commercial Group
Frost Museum of Art
Geode Capital Management
Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute
Morgan Stanley
Neuberger Museum of Art
The New York Public Library
NYU Langone Art Collection
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art
San Diego Museum of Art
The University of Pennsylvania
Weatherspoon Art Museum

Grants & Awards

Café Royal Cultural Foundation Artist Grant, 2021
Faculty Recognition Award, St. John’s University, annually from 2004 to 2014 and 2016 to 2021
Outstanding Achievement Award, St. John’s University, 2013
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Drawing, 2005
St. John’s University Summer Research Grant, 1998, 1999
University of Pennsylvania Teaching Fellowship, 1992
Georgia Foundation Grant for Travel in Italy, 1989
Clara Katherine Nelson Memorial Award for Distinction in Painting (Alfred University), 1988

Teaching

St. John’s University: