Michael DeLucia

Michael DeLucia’s mixed media practice revolves around contrasting digital and natural forms in three dimensions. He seeks out digital “sculptures,” such as tilted planes, cubes, or clouds, and carves them into large slabs of plywood with a mechanical router. The plywood is often masked in another material such as faux stone Formica laminate or paint. DeLucia challenges dimensionality, forcing objects from the digital realm to appear in reality, while the plywood itself functions as both sculpture and flat surface with a relief drawing. The artist’s choice of materials harks back to Arte Povera, while his subjects are often inspired by the consumerist imagery of Pop art. By way of an acrobatic process-oriented practice, DeLucia’s dissociative works are rarely what they appear to be.

DeLucia has shown at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Santa Barbara, 80WSE Gallery at New York University, the Socrates Sculpture Center and Park in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. He was awarded the Tyrant Prize in 2004 and The Parallel Prize in 2003. In 2010 he was commissioned by the Public Art Fund to create a sculpture at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn, New York.