Vincent Castagnacci | Variations on the rock that is Cape Ann

July 6 - 28, 2024 . Opening Reception . Thursday July 11th . 5-7:30pm

I first discovered Vincent Castagnacci’s work in his solo show at the Cape Ann Museum. That was 2022.  I’ve been looking at his work since and always finding more.  His work asks for time and contemplation. 

Space 1 presents a limited number of works from each of three themes: Halibut Point, Quarry Rhythms, and Folly Cove.  The intention is to focus on Castagnacci’s meditation on the physicality of Cape Ann. His drawings and paintings offer a new way of seeing. In these abstractions, he confirms his deep understanding of the Cape’s natural features, textures, patterns, and colors— a discernment embedded in all his work. The girth of granite; the pulverized stone; striations within rock; color in basalt; the arc of a bay or the bend in a road; the rippling of water—all distilled into the structure of place as he senses it. Castagnacci is an artist with the instinct of an architect and the curiosity of an excavator; and overall, a musician who intuits the harmony and grace of geometry.

In Space 2 continues with additional works. 

Castagnacci has received numerous grants and fellowships from Michigan and most recently was a Mellon Scholar at Kalamazoo College. In 1980 he was awarded a Citation and Grant from the American Academy in Rome where he was visiting artist for nine months. In 1999 he was named Arthur F. Thurnau Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts. He has lectured and published consistently in this country, in Rome at L’Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica and at the Gebaudelehre, Technische Universitat in Vienna.

For a slideshow of works in the exhibition, please scroll down. Then click on the arrow at right.