Don Porcella

Born and raised in Modesto, California, Don Porcella’s artwork has been exhibited at galleries in New York City, Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen, East Hampton, Washington D.C., Miami and San Francisco. Porcella’s art has been reviewed in the New York Times, NY ARTS, Fiber Arts Magazine, Chelsea Now, San Francisco Magazine and the Village Voice to name a few. He has a BA in Psychology from the University of California at San Diego, a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA from Hunter College in New York. Porcella’s work is included in public and private collections across the United States and Europe.  Porcella has received grants from the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island, the Brooklyn Arts Council, and an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park.  Porcella is the current artist-in-residence at the Museum of Arts and Design.

Inspired by nature, consumer culture, and science fiction, Porcella’s work is highly-reflective of his upbringing; his artist mother and physician father made almost everything by hand, which can be seen in his art that celebrates craft, the hand-made, and folk and outsider art. Porcella’s interest in nature and human evolution came from exploring the Sierra Nevada wilderness. Now living and working in NYC, Porcella seems to be recalling his earlier experiences in an animalistic call of the wild. By creating paintings, sculpture, drawings and installations from materials such as handmade wax and woven pipe cleaners, Porcella seeks to transform these low-brow materials and elevate them to a high art context, while simultaneously laughing at the human condition and presenting a unique world that is shamelessly awkward and unabashedly comical. Porcella’s work often references art historical movements, America’s rampant consumerism, and alien conspiracy theories, which allows the subjective and strange to penetrate humorous representations of a wildly imaginative reality.