Catalanotto, Paul

Paul Catalanotto’s artwork stems from his experience as an artisan plasterer mixing different plasters with tints and oxides.

Over time I began to notice how each color influenced the medium. I had my “AHA” moment when I realized making the plaster brown always weakened it, behaving just like Brown in nature, generally old, weak, dead or dying.

I now look at color as energy, each one having slightly different physical properties. They dominate different domains, generally following the order of the color spectrum, from the blue getting caught up the in the sky, down to the red, hot magma or blood running through our veins. I not only use the physical energy of color to imitate nature and evoke certain feelings, but to continually push the medium to its maximum performance.

Paul Catalanotto was schooled in industrial and graphic design at Carnegie Mellon University; and illustration, sculpture, photography and animation at Pratt Institute.