DeGibnio

DeGibnio been transforming materials for over four decades. In the mid-’80s, he went to the Art Institute of Chicago and refined his skills to produce paintings, drawings, and metal sculpture. He was heavily influenced by David Smith. His art professor told him,

“I could give you any three objects, and you could make a piece of art. But you need to find your own style.” A few years later, in a collage class at MICA, he began to find that style. But it hasn’t been a direct line from there to here.

For the last 40 years, he has restored historic structures throughout Maryland, from vernacular log cabins to the mansions of the founding fathers. He was given the decayed materials and components of historic structures and made them functional and beautiful, at least according to the standards of history as seen through modern eyes.

Now he is finding his own decayed components. The collages you’re seeing are composed of detritus: from our own failed industries, our disregard for craftsmanship, and the limitations of the materials. The elements have been picked off the ground in junkyards, saved from the dumpsters of historic buildings being turned into million-dollar condos, and scurried away from abandoned factories. He selected them because he sees beauty in the layers of color and texture that result naturally from years of use, followed by years of neglect. He composes them in a way that is ordered and structured, but with a rough edge.

DeGibnio is composing his assemblages from historic but ubiquitous materials that meet his standards of beauty. Pieces of rusted metal, layers of tarred roofing, sheets of broken windshield have become his palette. He pieces them together much like one puts together a puzzle. Except he has no picture to work from, and there are no physical limitations as to how they come together. He begins with a “nucleus,” adding, subtracting, subtly changing, and always ordering. He just knows, when one piece is next to another, that they fit.

Other artists try to achieve these effects by building up and taking away layers of new material. He sees those physical qualities inherent as he walks through junkyards and abandoned factories. The stratified textures and bleak colors are reminiscent of Anselm

There is meaning in these materials created by the hands of the forgotten workforce.

He takes pride in giving new life to this ephemera. His goal is to present it in a way that makes the viewer look differently at what we castoff, both as individuals and as a society.