Nicholas Carbonaro has a unique take on life–as he discussed with us at his art show. He truly believes in the importance of creativity in everyday life, and that we must all work to feed our creativity. He sees the world in a different way than most–the example of how he draws eyes has the most explanatory power. A student asked him why he seemed to always draw eyes as different sizes/ colors/ styles, and he responded that he draws them that way because that is how they are. Apparently, the human face is quite rarely symmetrical, and the way we appear to others is how we look in that picture that caught us off-guard, rather than the perfect selfie we post on Facebook. Since he is aware of this lack of symmetry, he exaggerates the motif in his artwork to draw attention to it.

I was personally struck by the contrast in his use of color. His work was either black and white, or full of vibrant colors. There was no in-between, no soft, muted pieces with pastel colors. I tried to see the possible reason for his use of color in his colored pieces, but either it just went over my head or there was no reason. I know that I was personally drawn to the vibrant colors more than I was drawn to the black and white pieces, which is probably a common response. Perhaps his reason for using black and white is to subtly put off the viewer. He definitely seems to enjoy making people uncomfortable by portraying something as different from how we would normally imagine it–like the eyes. I really enjoyed this event, because actual artwork is hard to come by on campus without going to the Johnson Museum, and I am especially glad that we got to hear directly from Carbonaro!