Gianfranco Angelino

b. 1938, Napoli, Italy

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC
Politecnico, Milan, Italy
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbour, MI
Woodturning Center, Philadelphia, Pa

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2008        Turned Wood-Small Treasures, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
                Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Scottsdale, AZ
                Collect 2008, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
2006-08   Turning Wood Into Art, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art Gallery, London, UK
2007        Collect 2007, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
2006        ARTscottsdale, WestWorld, Art & Antiques, Scottsdale, AZ
2005        Masters of Wood Art 3, Finer Things Gallery, Nashville, TN
                Collect 2005, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England, UK
                Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Philadelphia, PA
2003-04   Selected Works, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2004        Solo Exhibition, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
                Nature Transformed, Wood Art from the Bohlen Collection, University of Michigan
                        Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
2003        Collectors of Wood Art Forum, Santa Fe, NM
2002        Surface + Form, Craftwest Gallery, Perth, Australia
2001       Challenge VI - Roots: Insights & Inspirations in Contemporary Turned
                Objects, Berman Museum of Art, Collegeville, PA, touring
2000        Featured Artist, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1999-07   Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, New York, NY
                Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
1993-07   Turned & Scultpured Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

ARTIST STATEMENT

After devoting my turning activity to open forms for many years, I felt as if I had somehow exhausted my research in this field. Hence, I decided to explore new shapes and I selected the closed, spherical type, configuration. I had no experience at all in this subject and I had to develop new working techniques. Furthermore, I had to face a particular problem of an aesthetical nature. I was accustomed to rely in my work on special, translucent woods which, in the case of an open bowl, can be easily looked at against a light to show their peculiar, inner beauty. In a closed form, it is not so simple to look though the wall of the piece. At last, by means of a careful selection of woods and shapes I think I succeeded in preserving the typical character of my work, which depends heavily on wood translucency.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Gianfranco Angelino resides in Italy, having been born in Naples in 1938. Private studies in botany and practice in woodworking paralleled his institutional education (MS and Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering).

Angelino has spent years developing new techniques and new tools to make technically feasible the exploitation of special portions of plants such as branches, roots, knots, bifurcates or of the stalk of small shrubs. His field search for hidden wood peculiarities produced a file of 40 to 50 Mediterranean species, which he currently uses in the manufacture of, turned artifacts. Spruce and larch lower branches, furze, yellow, black and giant gorse, and lilac are some examples of fascinating almost unknown materials used by Angelino.

Since a great portion of the most charming woods are of small dimensions and irregular (i.e. organic) shape, usual techniques are powerless in converting the material into an object. Angelino has developed several new methods, with the aim of making the reclamation of otherwise interactable pieces of wood possible.