Dear Johnny Adimando
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 7 seconds. Contains 824 words
Long time no see on this newsletter! I've been taking an extended break from this project to better handle mental wellbeing with my hectic work life, as well as any sort of vacation that I can afford to take.
I’ll be experimenting with my writing schedule to both allow for more breathing room mentally and emotionally, as well as occasionally cover other art world topics, share books, and anything else I may feel relevant. Currently, I’m thinking a once-per-week artist piece with an occasional switch out and/or bonus ride about other cool-ass topics. Now, once a week cannot be promised, but it's a light goal for myself, and that's what matters.
You may have also noticed that I've relocated hosts! I have relocated from Substack to Ghost, a platform that will allow me even more features compared to the former. Acts of solidarity aside as to what kick-started my initial leap, I look forward to making a truly crisp and new essay newsletter experience.
Thanks for riding with me so far!
For my return, I wanted to revisit an artist I was fortunate enough to meet in person while working for a small contemporary art gallery in Providence RI my first year out of undergrad. I got to assist with the installation of his 2015 solo exhibition, The Forlorn Incantations, and it left a permanent imprint on my memory with works that blended the futuristic, the geometric, and the spiritual. Johnny Adimando is a Rhode Island-based artist working full time in the printmaking department at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been featured in a multitude of exhibitions, both group shows and solo shows, across the country, including Rick Wester Fine Art NYC, the Boston Center for the Arts, Dan Graham Gallery Los Angeles, and more. Adimando’s work utilizes collage (both physical and digital), photography, and sculptural structures to bring a fantastical surrealist’s dream to life.
“Through my work, I explore formal dynamics related to the visual representation of divinity, the processes of self-imprisonment, and ritual (tied to both dogma and spirituality)… I focus primarily on systems/structures of authority, ideas about armoring oneself against the world, and accessioning primordial escapist urges….I’m hellbent on this idea of bringing the metaphysical to plastic/malleable form. I find most of my inspiration in votive objects, religious artifacts and spaces; cathedral over museum let’s say.” - beautifulbizarre.net
Because much of Adimando's work focuses on a sort of existentialism, the pieces become complex, utilizing intricate geometry and a wide variety of occult symbolism. By making such bodies of work, viewers have the opportunity to meditate on the details and consider concepts such as their reactions to each piece and why, what their relationship is to the piece and with themselves, and so forth. At first, Adimando's work can come across as overwhelming. However, one can quickly pick up on how there's a rhyme and reason to each composition with how naturally every shape and every symbol fit into place with one another, even if the overall message is not initially clear or understood.
Rather than attempt to summon Lucifer, perhaps Adimando is merely trying to bring order to an overstimulated visual imagination. The individual parts might be ominous, but at least every skull and dagger is harmoniously placed. - Mark Jenkins, Washington Post
I first saw Adimando's work during a time when I was first emerging from college and embracing my love and fascination with more gothic aesthetics. His work was an incredible blend of contemporary blackwork tattoos and orthodox cathedrals I grew up attending. Like I'm sure many individuals who would first see his work, I thought it would all look incredible as tattoos. The longer I look at everything, however, something else sparks entirely.
His latest collage pieces feature mask-like appearances, hinting at the presence of mouthless, noseless deities quietly observing the observer. With their incredibly intricate tendrils spinning out from their two-dimensional faces, there's a sense that you're witnessing a being of reverence, and possibly a being worthy of being feared. At the same time, that's what's so attractive about them. There's something akin to the gods you would only see in a fantasy sci-fi film, so what's not to love? With this latest body of collage work, it just reinforces Adimando's embrace of alternative spirituality. His sculptural work can be the altars, and the mask collages the deities in which the altars are created for. Of course, only Adimando is the only one that can confirm the existence of this religion.
I personally highly encourage anyone and everyone to check out Adimando's portfolio. I admittedly have a bit of bias towards him from previously working with him in person as well as his connection to a New England school, but it's always such a blessing to know an artist such as himself is considered a local for me. And yes, I still think much of his would would make an incredible tattoo.