Concurrent with Pictures to Promote Thought

Opening reception, September 18, 6–8pm

Michael Mangino (b. 2004, lives Pittstown, NJ) paints flat on a table so it is no wonder that his paintings bring to mind maps or topographies from a bird’s eye view. He is invested in juxtaposing color through a variety of irregular shapes that can resemble land masses like peninsulas, coastlines, and islands. The act of painting itself seems to captivate Mangino, rather than the desire to represent something, as if he is addressing anew Robert Ryman’s famous question “what can paint do?” For Mangino, paint can do a lot. It can be hatch-like brushstrokes (inadvertently evoking Ryman) that fill forms or entire expanses of canvas. Paint can be gestural lines and morse-code like stutters that delineate shapes. It can be dabs that congregate along the borders between forms, but also migrate and rest in fields of color. Paint can also be a picture frame, as he sometimes paints the outer perimeter and edges of a painting as if announcing to the world “this is a painting.” Mangino’s jagged expanses of painted color abutting one another resonate with yet another painter of importance, Clyfford Still. But Mangino has evolved independently of such precedent and context, reinventing abstraction on his own terms at Studio Route 29, Frenchtown, NJ, a progressive studio where artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities come to make their work. Mangino has had solo exhibitions at SHRINE, New York, NY and ArtYard, Frenchtown, NJ. He has been included in group exhibitions at Beauty Gallery, Frenchtown, NJ; Galerie Burster’s NADA residency, New York, NY; and Casemore Gallery, San Francisco, among others.

The Righteous Gladness exhibition title is inspired by a phrase from Mangino’s text practice whereby he makes lists of words taken from word search puzzle books and writes them over abstract paintings on paper.

Michael Mangino: The Righteous Gladness is organized in concert with Look Here, a multiphase project of exhibitions and a symposium this fall exploring the art of progressive studios locally and across the United States, organized by Haverford College and Center for Creative Works. For more information: https://exhibits.haverford.edu/lookhere/