John Dante Bianchi: “Unavoidable Encounter”

Bianchi’s wall-based works are both sculpture and painting, emerging from the wall or built in many layers and exactingly constructed all the way through, from stretcher to support to surface. Much of Bianchi’s work explores the ideation of the piece as a body (an object) with a skin (a surface), which is exposed to forces of time and events leaving their mark. The Bruised Panels, for example, are speckled with colors that directly reference skin tones and bruises: pinks and blues and creams. They are built up in layers and sanded down to reveal textures and colors underneath. Bianchi’s work encapsulates a sense of time within it, not only in the sense of process, but also in some of the materials he chooses, such as recycled redwood (the world’s largest and longest-living trees) to make his freestanding sculptures.