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Alan Pocaro

Web Link: www.alanpocaro.com
@alanpocaro

BIOGRAPHY

Alan Pocaro is an artist and writer based in Illinois. His works have been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions, including recent shows Every Inch, a Mile at Illinois Central College (Peoria, IL) The Distance Between Us at DSA (Dayton, OH) NEXT 2019 at Sabine Street Studios (Houston, TX), Moving Pictures at the Catich Gallery (Davenport, IA), Visible • Invisible • Divisible at CO-Prosperity Sphere, (Chicago, IL) and Abstractions at Line Gallery (Stroud, Gloustershire, England).

Associated with the New Aesthetics movement -an informal group of individuals who emphasize the physical and material nature of art- Pocaro is a member of the AICA and contributes regular art-criticism to Chicago's New City magazine. His writing has appeared in New American Paintings, Art Critical, Abstract Critical, City Beat and ART PAPERS.

Pocaro is currently appointed Assistant Professor of Art + Design at Eastern Illinois University.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I describe my work as a series of scenes that chart a nameless place. Part narrative, part history lesson, part Midwestern landscape at dusk. These images arise from the gamut of everyday experience, embracing the joys and sorrows of an all too fragile existence.

I produce editions like any printer. But rather than persist as the final product, these impressions form the raw materials that animate my book-making practice. From the illusion of painterly brush strokes to the half-tone spaces of historic images, printmaking allows for an aesthetic distance that is cool & cerebral, while bookmaking creates spaces that are warm and intimate.

By combining screen-printing, drawing, painting, monotype and Xerox transfer, my efforts embrace the rapid shifts, curious juxtapositions and perceptual instability of contemporary life. I can’t -nor do I wish to- know how an individual book will resolve itself, but I proceed blindly (because art resists as often as it reveals) in the ardent belief that what will emerge is some new and heretofore unseen aspect of a distant shore.

ARTIST'S WQRK

Project Descriptions

Compilation view, multiple artists books.

Radiation to the Periphery Concertina-style Artist Book
Screenprint on Rives BFK
5” X 8” (32” when fully extended)
2018

Light in August
Side-bound Artist Book
Screenprint & Solvent Transfer on Thai Kozo
4” X 7”
2018

Tristia
Codex-style Artist Book
Screenprint, Solvent Transfer & Collage on Stonehenge Aqua
6.5” X 8.5”
2019

Tristia (Detail)
Codex-style Artist Book
Screenprint, Solvent Transfer & Collage on Stonehenge Aqua
6.5” X 8.5”
2019

Ars Amatoria (Detail)
Codex-style Artist Book with die-cut pages & Volvelle
Screenprint, Solvent Transfer & Collage on Mylar & Stonehenge Aqua
11.25” X 10.25”
2019

Ars Amatoria
Codex-style Artist Book with die-cut pages & Volvelle
Screenprint, Solvent Transfer & Collage on Mylar & Stonehenge Aqua
11.25” X 10.25”
2019

La Duree
Concertina-style Artist Book made in Collaboration with Samantha Osborne
Screenprint with hand-cut embellishments on French Speckletone
7.5” X 10” (150” when fully extended)
2019