‘Here Be Dragons’

Carmon Colangelo monotypes at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery

Carmon Colangelo, “Mauve Sensing Green” (left) and “Remote Sensing” (right). Monotype relief prints, 47″ x 35″ each, both 2016.

"The compass rose spins out of control. Rule marks climb over geographic boundaries. The map enfolds the symbols of its making.”

In the exhibition “Here Be Dragons,” now on view at the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, Carmon Colangelo, dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, playfully but pointedly examines the limits of knowledge and the precarious social and political states that define our contemporary moment.

Printed at Flying Horse Editions in Orlando, these large-scale monotypes combine hand-drawing and digital manipulation with a range of materials and techniques designed to highlight the role of chance in shaping our own psycho-geographies. Drafting tools, leftover scraps from laser-cut architectural models and other found materials are recycled and reimagined as part of Colangelo’s personal taxonomy of images. The results are at once seductively tactile and spatially disorienting — and a fitting metaphor for the dangerous waters that, even in a time of increasing global connectivity, must surely lie ahead.

“Here be Dragons” remains on view through Dec. 31. For more information, visit jonathanferraragallery.com.” -Liam Otten

Carmon Colangelo is the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts of Washington University.

For more information about the exhibition click here.