Peter Cotroneo

Region: South

Website: http://www.petercotroneo.format.com

City / State: knoxville, TN

My recent works are tied up in painterly romanticism, while trying to eschew all of it. Paint is substituted for charcoal and water. Space is relegated to the distance between me and the wall. Touch is limited to the smashing and scraping of dust. Figuration is used only for depicting stomachaches, energy drinks, and skepticism.

I fill the studio with cartoon monsters and ghosts of myself. Slipping between drinking and singing, wincing and bowing— they are the antiheroes of their own pictures. Filled up on energy drinks and shaken up to the point of nausea, they move from celebration and exuberance to discomfort and regret. Animated by repeated efforts, these paintings gesture toward their own failure—clumsily taking up their positions, ready to smash the can into their own faces or to crumple against the wall.