The Art of Chris Orapello

Acrylic Painting Classes Starting Soon!

2012-01-22T07:01:00.000-08:00

Coming in late February 2012 Christopher Orapello will be holding regular acrylic painting classes at a local venue.

Have you always wanted to learned how to paint, but didn't know how to get started? This is your opportunity to learn! Open to all skill levels we'll be creating beautiful acrylic works of art. Come home with a new painting every class!

Space is limited. Please inquire for further info!

TGH: Issue #10

2012-01-14T06:04:00.000-08:00

Title Goes Here Magazine Issue #10 is now available for purchase. I created the cover art titled "Death By Water" was based upon the story "High Water" by Daniel LeMoal which also appears in the issue. C. Bryan Brown, one of the editors at Misanthrope Press loves how the eyes in the image are just weirdly... weird.

Thanks C. Bryan Brown! I personally love how Misanthrope Press is awesomely... awesome!

Rock on!

Etched Offerings Cover

2012-01-01T09:10:00.000-08:00

Recently the cover that I did for Misanthrope Press' new story anthology Etched Offerings: Voices From The Cauldron of Story has become available!

The cover is reflective of a story in the anthology which bears the same name as the book. The story contained an element where offerings that were made to the divine were etched on stone in the form of images or text. The idea behind the cover embodies this idea by inscribing the "stone book" with the image of a cauldron making the book itself an etched offering.

Copies of this book are now available through Misanthrope Press.

Website Updated!

2012-01-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

After several hours of love, the website is now updated! I have slightly reformatted the individual pages and tightened up the overall appearance. I think the subtle alterations have done wonders for the presentation and page content. Check it out for yourself!

Polishing Up The Website...

2011-12-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

I am currently revamping the website associated with this blog. It's similar to the current website, but it is coming a long as being slightly more polished in appearance with more artwork and a few more categories of work listed. Being an artist in this world at times feel so restrictive and limiting. Having the art background that I do makes me feel self-conscious about anything and everything I do as if it all has to work together. It's frustrating. I hope you find the new website as liberating as I do. I will be including work from my past that I previously felt as if I had to abandon it as I moved forward. I am quickly coming to terms with the idea that it is all of value because it is all of me.

Reinventing the self only results self stagnation.

TGH: Issue #8

2011-07-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

"Among the Fae"

Acrylic on canvas

Title Goes Here: Magazine Issue #8

Recent cover art by me.

2011-01-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

A Finished Work

2010-06-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

The final cover painting for Issue #4 is now finished and the magazine will be available in July through their website.

Issue #3 of Title Goes Here: Now Available!

2010-04-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

My back cover full page ad is featured on the back of the third issue of Title Goes Here: magazine.

This magazine features dark imaginative fiction by talented authors and can be purchased here.

Their website says:

"Issue Three has been out for about two days as of this post, released on April 13th, 2010. This issue features fiction by Jeremiah Donaldson, Martin Turton, Edward Rodosek, Ivan Sun, and Lawrence Buentello. Cover art for this issue is by Paul Robinson. There’s also a back-cover ad for artist Chris Orapello, and even though it’s an ad, that’s well worth a look, too, as it does feature one of his amazing paintings. Mr. Orapello will be our cover artist for Issue Four, so consider this your sneak preview!"

Thanks to those individuals at Title Goes Here:!

Painting Class

2010-04-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

I'm currently involved with organizing a weekly open attendence painting class that I will be teaching in Medford, NJ. Details are still sketchy, but this is going to be a good time for sure!

Art anyone?

Title Goes Here:

2010-04-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I have had the opportunity to not only have an ad in the April issue of Title Goes Here: , a magazine of dark imaginative fiction, but I also have the honor of doing cover/interior art for them as well!

It's a great magazine and issues can be purchsed online via their website!

Topless Nude With Black Hair

2010-01-24T17:26:00.000-08:00

I always enjoyed this image as it captured the quiet beauty of the model whom I've barely spoken too. Perhaps it is a lie, but the moment in the image always grabs me as she stands out from the simple background as if she were in the middle of doing something or not entirely ready to be painted. It is the ambiguity of life and the fact that she is not looking at the viewer gives her just a few more seconds of privacy before she notices our presence.

The Fate of Us All

2010-01-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

The Fate of Us All is an image which portrays an apocalypse in the presence disfigured beings. The irony being the look of delight on the face of the creature in the foreground who blocks the viewer from the impending devestation. The greeter in the image represents the grotesque deformities indicative of society's future legacy.

Reunited - 9/11/01 Memorial

2009-12-27T10:41:00.000-08:00

Comprised of two sections of cut I-beam and steel circular base mounted a top a custom piece of black granite.

To my knowledge, as I have been told, the pieces of I-beam are from the remains of the World Trade Center.

Reunited... to imply to joining of the two pieces of which had been previously separated ...to relate to how the tragic event brought the country together ...to relate to how those who perished during the attack have since been reunited to the right hand of God or Deity.

It is a very quiet and solemn piece to behold. Its appears to be in action of uniting, but it is still and paused. The wounds exhibited by the event have not been fixed or are in the processing of healing. The pieces of I-beam were once of each other as can be witnessed by the relation of cut marks along their edges. A majority of the surface, although cleaned, was left intact so as not to erase their history or significance as every mark made and left on the sculpture is a testimonial to its journey.

The Artist Statement

2009-12-27T10:22:00.000-08:00

As of late I have been trying to be honest with who I am as an artist. I do not think there is any where else for one to go with their art as most avenues seem to (I think?) have been tapped and exhausted by the artists of the past. Do I see art as one's way to establish some unique perspective of the world to convey a message or make some pointless comment about society? No.

I think America has such a media driven superficiality about it that most people are fooled by the reality it portrays and are unable to see the layers of which it harbors. The world is not a genuine place. It's an ideal. It's lost from us.

I have been trying to re formulate my artist statement for my website and the most current version (12/27/009 1:32pm EST) simply states that, "originality is a myth." I have never seen anyone, past or present, do anything original every art work/movement was stolen from somewhere. And if the same work can be degraded and praised all at the same time what the hell does any of it matter?

I hate artist statements and I think they are one of the worst aspects of being an artist. Is it not enough that you've created a work? I have to now create/write something to go along with it? The original thing is not enough?

Website updated!

2009-06-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

Just added a few more painting images to the gallery page of the website.

The titles are:

Slaughtered object
Legs with feet
Stained Canvas

Enjoy!

2009-05-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

108th Annual Student Exhibition

May 8 - 31, 2009

at
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Presented in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building
(Northwest corner of Broad and Cherry, Philadelphia, PA)

Opening reception May 8th 5:00 - 8:30pm

Featuring the recent works of Christopher Orapello

"Reunited" Has Been Installed

2008-09-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

This morning the granite stone base for "Reunited," the 9/11/01 Memorial sculpture, was delivered a day earlier than we initially planned. The installation went extremely well and the final piece looks wonderful! It always amazes me when something I had envisioned comes to fruition. I now no longer have to see it in my mind, but can now look upon it with my own eyes as a reality and as an object in space. And now others can see and experience what I have been planning for the last two years!

I would just like to thank everyone who helped out and those individuals who contributed to this project to make it possible. A special thank you to Joseph Halpin and Jeremiah Hawkins for choosing to involve me in the designing and making of this monument. As an artist it was a great opportunity, but as a Freemason and as an American it meant so much more to be a part of it. Thank you.

Installation

2008-09-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

It looks as if on September 26th the granite base for "Reunited" is going to be delivered which means we will be able to finally install the sculpture.

As of late...

2008-08-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

As of now, we are still waiting for the granite base to be delivered so that "Reunited" can be installed in it's final location and be on permanent public display. However, the stone is not late as we were originally told late August or early September, but the anticipation of it is exciting.

I began some new work on Friday and I hope to have some new imagery for my online gallery soon.

"Reunited" has been Received!

2008-07-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

I delivered the "Reunited" sculpture to its future permanent home yesterday morning. It was the first time that the administration of the Masonic Home, and those responsible for involving me in the project, have seen the sculpture since the two pieces of I-beam (relics from the World Trade Center) had been given to me to make a sculpture with. Everyone said that they were very pleased with the way the sculpture came out and were amazed at how well the once dirty, rusty, asbestos covered I-beams cleaned up into beautiful pieces of metal with such intricate textures and markings. I myself had been very happy with it as well and also became amazed by it during its finishing stages. I look forward to installing it so I can see it once again and see it upon its black granite stone base for the first time finally making the sculpture complete. Since the base was such a part of my original design, to me the sculpture is not entirely finished as of yet. It is currently resting in a small corner of a boardroom for Monday when those who work there will come in and see it for the first time. I hope they enjoy it as much as I do.

It's strange, this whole time this sculpture design has been in my head. I knew what it was going to look like and up until now, I imagine that to some people it had been a thing of myth, something the artist had been talking about and describing for several years. It had not been until yesterday that that myth has grown into a reality making it tangible, allowing others to experience it. It's an interesting thought to me and I am glad to have played a part in this project and to have had the opportunity to design and create this sculpture and to share my abilities as an artist with others.

9/11 Memorial is completed!

2008-07-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

It's been a long road, but finally "Reunited," the 9/11 Memorial, is finished. Made from two polished pieces of I-Beam from the World Trade Center carefully arranged and mounted on a circular steel base. This sculpture will then be mounted on a 30" tall block of black granite. The overall sculpture will stand at about 6 feet tall. Though it won't be fully installed until later in the summer, tomorrow I will be delivering it to it's new home, which will be in the Fellowship Center of the Masonic Home in Burlington, New Jersey. A dedication ceremony will be planned for September. The official date has yet to be announced, but it may be on or around 9/11/08 in memory of the attack on the World Trade Center.