Matt Carone: Autocycles: Paintings and Works on Paper    Mar 6 - May 29, 2009

Largely inspired by his 45-year friendship with the famed Chilean painter Roberto Matta, Carone’s paintings recently took a turn toward a more patterned abstraction. According to the artist, the new subtly toned works “seem to be an opening of a new door of automatism. “The approach is similar to the past works but the image is arrived at more spontaneously and graphically,” Carone says. “Subconscious symbols and rhythmic gestures relating to each other or canceling each other out seem to be the building blocks to the final statement.

“The seed,” he acknowledges, “was planted by Matta.” Like the abstract expressionists, Carone seeks “a spontaneous image as a consequence of a gesture...dictated more by the subconscious than by a rational, disciplined procedure.”

Carone became interested in art as an adolescent during the summer of 1944, when he was asked to model for Hans Hoffman. His older brother, the well-known painter Nicolas Carone, was studying with Hoffman.

Through his brother and years of involvement in art, Carone has had a close association with many of the era’s most famous artists and critics, including Conrad Marca-Relli, James Brooks, Paul Jenkins, Sandro Chia, Larry Rivers, Balcolm Greene, James Rosenquist, Duane Hanson, Thomas Hoving, Clement Greenberg and many others. His extensive professional biography lists one-person exhibitions in such museums as the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, the Boca Raton Museum, Don and Dottie Jacobs Gallery at Georgetown College, Kentucky, and the Palazzo Panni Museum in Arco di Trento, Italy, along with numerous leading private galleries.

Paintings by Carone are included in the permanent collections of Bard College at Simon's Rock, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; Bass Museum, Miami Beach, Florida; Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida; Fort Lauderdale City Hall, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Hoover Collection, Albion College, Albion, Michigan; Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois; Iona College, New Rochelle, New York; Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida; Federica Matta; Ramuntcho Matta; Roberto Matta; Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; North American Rockwell Corporation; Palazzo Panni Museum, Arco di Trento, Italy; Peabody Museum, Nashville, Tennessee; Rahr-West Art Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin; Simon's Rock College of Bard, Great Barrington, Massachusetts; Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York; and the Virginia Center for The Creative Arts, Mt. San Angelo, Virginia.

Located in the heart of the Coral Gables business district at 169 Madeira Avenue, ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries is Greater Miami’s longest-established contemporary fine art gallery. It is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and by appointment. A virtual tour of the exhibition may be seen at www.virginiamiller.com