Artist Jason Amatangelo wants to someday have an exhibit titled Windex. It makes sense, he says, because people often get up close to his work and even press their faces against the frames, causing him to wipe them off afterwards.
Their intrigue comes from Amatangelo’s unique style – one he calls abstract illusionism – which incorporates a 3-D plane, meticulously airbrushed, “intense” colors and precise placement of various geometric forms.
Amatangelo stumbled upon his technique almost by accident. The Erie, Pa.-native moved to Columbus eight years ago for his day job as a packaging engineer. Beyond the office, he is multitalented, spending his free time racing sailboats or skateboarding or renovating his house. He has also always dabbled in art, including stints as an animator for Marvel Comics, a sketch artist and a fine-paying graffiti artist.
He graduated from Edinboro University in 1999 with a degree in applied media arts. The coursework provided solid experience, but was too heavily focused on animation for Amatangelo’s preference. He was more of a traditionalist, so he drew realistic baby portraits, still-lifes and anything else customers commissioned. It was a hobby that kept him busy outside of work, and he was selling plenty of pieces.
But Amatangelo’s artist friends, all of whom were into abstract work, often pushed his buttons about his creative path.
“They were really on my case because everything I did was tight and realistic and didn’t seem to fit my personality,” Amatangelo says. “So I sort of succumbed to peer pressure and started playing around with shapes and abstracts. Why not? They were selling a lot of their stuff.”
Amatangelo hadn’t experimented with 3-D or abstracts since college. But he opened his mind and, while on his 2004 honeymoon with wife Linda, he carried a sketchbook around Italy, putting a new twist on his drawings. Amatangelo was abandoning realism, simplifying shapes and looking at things in a different way.
“My goal was to put shapes together and move them around and to have someone look at this and see something new each time,” he says.
Amatangelo began working with colored pencils but switched to airbrushing for more intense colors, something he still focuses on heavily in his work.
“When I do a piece, the color is the most important part. It’s like telling a story – the shapes are the meat and potatoes of the story, and the color is the fluff that moves you,” he says.
Once he established his abstract style and comfort level, Amatangelo did something that surprised himself.
“I took a razor blade and cut up one of my finished pieces and then used different types of foam from work and started building it back up again. I just segregated the pieces,” Amatangelo says. “It was a big revelation for me. Things moved, a new dimension was added and I loved it.”
Nobody else he knew of was doing this type of work, either, which appealed to him even more.
“You see a lot of abstract work, but this is a new twist on what that can be. The 3-D effect has kind of a ‘wow’ factor. I want you to see something different every time you look at it,” Amatangelo says. “I want to make art that changes when the sun comes into the room and creates different shadows. I want to make art so that anyone who buys it would have this ever-changing piece in their home.”
Delving into the unfamiliar is a big risk – some galleries are unwilling to take a chance on something different, but some are. Amatangelo is represented at the Mac Worthington Galerie in the Short North and the Agora Gallery in Chelsea, N.Y., and has had shows at the Ohio Art League, Roy G Biv Gallery, the Ohio State Fair, Junctionview Studios and many others.
Throughout July, he’ll also be a part of the Zanesville Art Center’s 65th Ohio Annual show while continuing to shop as many exposure opportunities as possible.
“I know people just aren’t used to seeing this kind of art,” Amatangelo says. “But I want to make art acceptable for people. I don’t want them to feel they need a doctorate in art history to know what they’re talking about. I want them to see something different and to have fun with it.”
For more information on Amatangelo’s work, visit www.jasonamatangelo.com.
Alicia Kelso is editor of CityScene.
Jason Amatangelo has graphic design, graffiti, realism drawing and 3-D abstract experience. He also completed six of 36 statues for the Brutus on Parade exhibit, a program developed by The Ohio State University to assist in raising funds for the renovation of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. His creations include Christopher Columbus Brutus, Mild Mannered Reporter Brutus, Mad Hatter Brutus, Liberty Brutus, Archie Brutus and Bill Willis Brutus. Check them out at www.brutusonparade.com.