Salvatore Pirrone
You and Me
January 4 – January 27, 2019
You and Me is an installation working with themes of memory, material and immaterial where I build a group of sculptures that simultaneously inhabit recollections from my childhood and proclivities of adulthood. Concrete, wood, acrylic and sawdust mirror my life as professional fabricator while hard candy, cone shapes and the color blue recall distinct imagery and delights from younger days. This work rests between the explicit and the indifferent, lyrical and direct, big and small, near and far, material and immaterial … ‘one day from my childhood stick out in my mind as different. I must have been six or seven years old when I began to chip away at the corner of my grandmother’s home with a pointed, metal rod. The tip of the rod was sharp and with each swing came the desire to do 10 more. I was a young, and for the first time I felt in control, I was the most powerful person in the world, full of purpose and ideas. With this tool in my hand, I could turn something into something new and different. I remember being so pleased that I could transform such a thing; it was my first conscious attempt to make sense of the world and my role in it. I was testing the relationship between my body, action and experience, and I had to engage a building material to do it.’
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Salvatore Pirrone is an artist and educator living the DC metro area. His studio practice exists at the intersection of art and design, with a particular interest in themes of ‘Work’, ‘Play’, ‘Identity’, and ‘Domesticity.’ He worked in the architectural offices of Carl Abbott and Huff + Gooden Architects before launching his own studio practice, where he is engaged in a variety of projects ranging from custom furniture, residential design and fine art. Salvatore is an Assistant Professor of Interior Design at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Florida and a Master of Fine Art degree from parsons the New School for Design in New York. Since relocating to the Washington Metro Area in 2009, Salvatore has shown with Arlington Arts Center, Atlas Performing Arts Center, CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery, Sandy Spring Museum, Transformer, Maryland Art Place and the Dittmar House at Marymount University.
