JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING - TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY is pleased to present Caio Fonseca: Selected Painting and Sculpture, an exhibition of work by artist Caio Fonseca on view from June 24th through July 31st, 2022. An artist’s reception will be held in July at a soon-to-be determined date. All are welcome to attend.
American artist Caio Fonseca is well known for his lyrical, abstract works of art. A talented musician, Fonseca is fascinated by the relationship between tone and form, which he explores in his paintings, sculpture, and works on paper. Representing the irreducible form of classical music, Fonseca’s work often displays blocks of color that create dynamic energy amid his textured, off-white backgrounds. The energy radiating from these colorful, geometric waves aims to evoke the invisible structure of meaningful compositions.
This exhibition presents a near-retrospective of an artist whose work is so individualized, so very identifiable in its personal vernacular, that one feels as though transported into Caio Fonseca’s abstract world. From monumental canvases to tabletop sculpture and more midsize canvases, there is an undeniable European modernist sensibility running through his work. Yet he paints entirely in his own clear voice. According to Fonseca, “something can only be revolutionary if it has some relation to tradition.”
Caio Fonseca is the son of artists. His father, Gonzalo Fonseca (1922-1997), is considered one of Latin America’s leading modernist sculptors, and his mother, Elizabeth Fonseca, is an accomplished artist in her own right. Fonseca grew up in New York City, and later spent long summers in Pietrasanta, Italy, where his father maintained a separate studio. In 1985, Fonseca purchased an old marble workshop in the town that he converted into a studio. Today he divides his time between Pietrasanta and Manhattan. Fonseca spent his freshman year at Brown University, then joined his older brother, Bruno (1958-1994), in Barcelona where they studied with Augusto Torres (1913-1992), son of Joaquín Torres-Garcia (1874-1949), who trained their father a lifetime earlier.
Fonseca’s five years in Barcelona gave him a thorough grounding in the skills and intellectual underpinning needed to become a painter. After his formal studies he spent six more years abroad, in Pietrasanta and Paris, working independently to develop a distinctive approach to painting. As a result Fonseca’s work developed far from the trends and styles that characterized the mainstream American art scene in the 1980s. By the late 1990s, Fonseca’s work was shown in exhibitions at Charles Cowles Gallery, Knoedler Gallery, and Paul Kasmin Gallery, proving highly successful. Fonseca's work is held in numerous important public and private collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art New York, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Smithsonian Institution, D.C; The Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, D.C; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, as well as many others.
