James Pustorino is an artist curator, and arts organizer and is Director of Victory Hall DRAWING ROOMS, an art-space in Jersey City exhibiting hundreds of artists from the NY/NJ area. As Executive Director of Victory Hall Inc. a Jersey City based non-profit arts organization, he has produced exhibitions and public art projects in Jersey City and lower Manhattan as well as directing many projects for students and classes for developmentally disabled artists.
Pustorino received a 2019 Fellowship in Painting from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and has exhibited in venues throughout the U.S., including Odetta Gallery, NYC, the Columbus Museum, The Butler Institute of American Art, and the Jersey City Museum, and has had solo exhibitions with Ste. Peter's University, Casa Colombo, and the Watchung Center in NJ, and Chambers 916 Gallery in Portland, OR. His artwork uses graphic, abstract and realistic form to explore concepts of narrative and spatial/structural composition.
Books: Universechild and Cosmic Strips available on Amazon
Posters, Prints, Etc. at Fine Art America
James Michael Pustorino 74 W46 St. Bayonne, NJ 07002 201 208.8032 [email protected]
Executive Director: Victory Hall Inc. - DRAWING ROOMS 926 Newark Ave. #T107 Jersey City NJ 07306 [email protected] drawingrooms.org
Exhibition Views>
Recent Exhibitions
Sound of a Star: St Peter's University March 2021
Cosmic Strips Watchung Center NJ February 2020
Tilted World: Paintings and sculpture about the structure of light
by James Pustorino at Casa Colombo, Jersey City.Nov 5-30, 2019
Spatial Intelligence - Oct-Nov 2014 Odetta Gallery, NYC
March/April 2011 Universechild-
Installation of the 12 drawings that comprise the series.
installation images
reviews and blogs:
Visual Arts Source https://www.visualartsource.com/index.php?page=editorial&pcID=26&aID=818
The Oregonian https://www.oregonlive.com/art/2011/03/universechild_by_james_pustori.html
April/May 2009 Cosmic Strips- Two-month solo Exhibitions at Chambers 916 gallery, Portland OR
The entire series of almost 20 large-scale works were rotated during the exhibit period.
reviews and blogs:
The Buzz http://thebuzzbybrian.blogspot.com/2009/04/chamber-is-so-916.html
Portland Mercury https://www.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2009/04/02/first-thursday-happenings
PM2 https://www.portlandmercury.com/events/1389423/james-pustorino-cosmic-strips
Solo Exhibition of 14 images from the Cosmic Strip and Space We're In series. at John
Meagher Rotunda Gallery, City Hall Jersey City, NJ September 2007
June- September/08 You Must be Dreaming- Windows on Columbus and Lobby at
Columbus & Greene St, Jersey City
Public Installation of work from American studies series.
Influences: Late 1990s artwork
Georg Baselitz
Peter Saul
Fernando Botero
Phillip Guston
Influences: Early 1990s artwork
Jasper Johns
Cy Twombly
Julian Schnabel
Morris Louis
Statement
In my work process I engage concepts and actions that I have classified as Myth, Math,
Memory, Music, Movement--while in the physical sense, I encounter Materials, the
Man-Made and the Mark.
Myth is a conceptualization of a reality or truth which is greater than ourselves and provides
or searches for meaning. Myth is what motivates all to act as we do. Our myths are
collective, building through our cultures, media and family history. All my work starts with
myth in some way, with a vision of a structure or image that holds my own or collective
aspirations. Sometimes, as in the America/landscape series, the myth (America itself) is
the subject as well.
Math, for me, is the building of a structure, finding the points in space and connecting the
lines, creating systems, adding and subtracting and balancing the parts. This, when this is
done through drawing and paint, is a very different exploration than if one had to build
objects in physical space, and much more speculative. An inspiration for how I consider
Myth and Math together is how Einstein and other physics create myth-stories in real
space-sometimes gridded, diagrammed space, to explain mathematical concepts.
Memory-as I work, I draw upon experience of art and life: internal images put together from
what I have seen, places I have been, impressions of light air heaviness solidity etc.
Music provides a poetic pattern that is physically compelling music provides passages
where different things happen, music tells an abstract story, music culminates into a
whole experienced and lived through time.
Movement, finally is what I perceive how to effect in the image--it can come first but is
usually only fully realized at the end.
Projects/Exhibits
I work in conceptual series and often whole sets of works are shown together. My exhibits are designed with a sense of story and spectacle that make them appealing to the public.
As a very active exhibition organizer and curator myself, I work with my team and with over 200 individual artists per year to organize and install about 80 solo-room exhibits and
annual large-scale exhibits.I also moderate monthly artist talks and give exhibit tours of other artists' works as well as my own work year-round to people of all ages.
I understand the demands of exhibition spaces and have put together the following exhibit plans for my work.
COSMIC STRIPS
There are twenty works from the Cosmic Strips series available for exhibitions. The works are pencil, colored pencil and acrylic on denril, a translucent polypropylene/vellum.
They are panoramic images, all 54" in height and varying in width from 105" to 144". One work is vertical and is 96" high. Denril is a tough, light-weight material that comes in rolls.
The works are stored and transported rolled and are extremely compact. For exhibit purposes, they are simply rolled out and installed directly on the wall with Velcro or Command strips, adhered to a white wall. In galleries, magnets have also been used directly on the images. The works have all been sealed with an acrylic spray and are fairly impervious to touch, wear and public traffic.
Public Interaction: I can be available to discuss and give tours of the works. They are symbolic/narrative in nature and can easily be related to by all ages.
Students or public projects can also be developed that employ the principles of the works.
Promotions
The Victory Hall Press 88 page book, Cosmic Strips, is published and currently available on Amazon and other online sellers.
Because this is a print-on-demand item, the text can be added to/adapted in order to reflect a new exhibition and institution.
There is also a poster-sized Chart for The Cosmic Strips 1 and 2
Travel/Installation: These are large-scale works that travel very economically and are very simple to install.
PDF
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByYdVxkivg7pYjlRTjhtdW9CYzA/view