BIOGRAPHY

Dominic is a native of Chicago Illinois and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and a Master of Fine Arts from the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. After completing his BFA studies, he spent two years working for an aerospace company producing fabrication and assembly drawings for satellites, military aircraft, and mobile artillery units. Over the last decade he has worked in the tradeshow industry and has overseen worldwide exhibition programs for major multinational corporations. Dominic has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions around the United States. He is represented by Baang + Burne Contemporary in New York and Fulton Market Gallery in Chicago.  He teaches at the Evanston Art Center in Evanston Illinois.

 

STATEMENT

Through my current body of artwork I explore the violence of humankind and the role each of us play in facilitating an endless cycle of barbarity. Americans, in particular, have seemingly become addicted to the state of war, in part, due to our desensitization at the hands of the media we consume. From video games glorifying killing, to twenty-four hour coverage of conflicts, to real time video of smart bombs dropping down chimneys; we have an endless supply of stimuli to numb ourselves. The pain and suffering endured by others becomes nothing more than flickering images on a screen.

Influenced by the assembly line fabrication of industrial machinery, weaponry and munitions, and even our food; repetition plays a significant function in my sculpture, being representative of both the products and people behind the areas of my explorations. This can manifest as hundreds of identical individual components combining to make a single piece or an echoing of identifiable form in seemingly disparate objects. Cast objects dominate the work, either in the more traditional mediums of bronze, iron, and porcelain; or more contemporary materials, such as silicone and urethane rubbers, foam, and plastic. These primary elements, repetition and casting, combine to create an industrial mass-produced sensibility to my artwork.

 As a single cohesive composition, my work is intended to create a monument contradictory to the ones that dominate the landscape of our cities. While not in and of themselves, site-specific, the works become so in a general sense when contrasted to the memorials that glorify or romanticize war around the United States. These works are meant as a rebuttal to our public monuments, thereby rendering them site-responsive or perhaps even site-conditional as Robert Irwin described it in Being and Circumstance…

“Here the sculptural response draws all of its cues (reasons for being) from its surroundings. This requires the process to begin with an intimate, hands-on reading of the site”

Ultimately my body of work is born of my own identity and my response to it as a former member of the Military Industrial Complex and having grown up during the height of the Cold War in the 1980’s. In the end, these works do not answer the questions or propose solutions, but hopefully cause the viewer to consider, with more than a cursory glance, the visual culture of our cities, our entertainment, our public art, and our media.

 

CV

 

PROFILE

Dominic Sansone; Born 1974, Chicago, Illinois; Lives and works in St, Charles, Illinois 

 

EDUCATION 

2010 M.F.A., Herron School of Art and Design, Indianapolis, IN; 1997 B.F.A., University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 

 

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 

2013

April Solo Exhibition, Spiva Art Gallery at Missouri Southern State University, Joplin, MO

February Solo Exhibition, Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, KY

It Shoots Further Than We Dream, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL Solo Show

2012

WAR-W|HOR|E|ROR|S, FM*Gallery, Chicago, IL Solo Show 

Next Wave Art Salon, The Haight, Elgin, IL

ArtPrize, DeVos Place Convention Center, Grand Rapids, MI

S.O.S., Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage, Indianapolis, IN Solo Show

Collections, FICTILIS, Seattle, WA

Inspired, Warrenville Historical Society, Warrenville, IL

F*ck Em/Forgive Me, Fulton Market Gallery, Chicago, IL

Hungry Bellows of the Minotaur, one night installation Fulton Market Gallery, Chicago, IL

The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Art and Civil Liberties, Fountain Street Church, Grand Rapids, MI

Iron Artists Show, Franconia Sculpture Park, Franconia, MN

Chain Mail, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

More is More, Lexington Art League, Lexington, KY

mailto:, Drift Station Gallery, Lincoln, NE

Show III, .01 Acres Art and Nature Park, Midwest Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN

Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show, SoFA Gallery, Bloomington, IN

6 to the 3rd, Art Chicago, Chicago Sculpture International Booth, Chicago, IL

2010

Chicago Artist Month, Las Manos Gallery, Chicago, IL 

 Artprize, Grand Rapids Community College - Heritage Patio, Grand Rapids, MI 

 4th Annual Masterpieces, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH 

 Digital Clay, Carbondale Clay Center, Carbondale, CO 

 Salon des Refuses - Sights Unseen, Americans for the Arts Public Art Preconference,  Baltimore, MD 

 Let’s All Drown Ourselves Tonight, Wug Laku’s Studio and Garage, Indianapolis, IN 

 Wear is the Art, Herron School of Art and Design Foundry, Indianapolis, IN 

 Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show, SoFA Gallery, Bloomington, IN, Juror Lisa Freiman 

 Wee Bitty Things, Space Camp Gallery, Indianapolis, IN 

 Bootleg Exhibitions: Play, Bootleg Gallery, Indianapolis, IN 

2009

 Bootleg Exhibitions Volume One, Bootleg Gallery, Indianapolis, IN 

 Oranje, Ross-Gage Building, Indianapolis, IN 

 The Herron Experience, Basile Center for Art, Design, and Public Life; Indianapolis, IN 

 Sculpture Studio Investigations, Frank and Katrina Basile Gallery, Indianapolis, IN 

2008

Time Tables and Other Fables, Marsh Gallery, Indianapolis, IN 

 Who I Was, What I’ll Be, Eleanor Prest Reese and Robert B. Berkshire Galleries,  Indianapolis, IN

  

COLLECTIONS 

Four Score, Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Bloomington, IN 

Private Collections; Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, and North Carolina

 

AWARDS, HONORS, GRANTS  

2011

Best of Show, Art and Civil Liberties, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, Grand Rapids, MI

Community Collaboration/Hot Metal Pour Iron Artist, Franconia Sculpture Park, MN

 2010

Faculty nominee for 2010 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award organized by the International Sculpture Center 

2009

Herron Graduate Art Scholarship and Teaching Assistantship, Indianapolis, IN 

Urban Art Context Public Art Grant, Indianapolis, IN 

2008

Herron Graduate Art Scholarship and Graduate Fellowship, Indianapolis, IN 

1997

Outstanding Senior Award, Urbana, IL 

Dean’s List, Urbana, IL 1995 - 1997

 

AFFILIATIONS

International Sculpture Center Member

Chicago Sculpture International Member

College Art Association Member

Artists Respond Globally