Artist to Watch: Iván Carmona

Iván Carmona creates abstract, brightly-colored sculptures often inspired by memories of Puerto Rico, where he grew up. As I also have roots in Puerto Rico, I was especially thrilled to learn of his work (and recently acquired one of his sculptures for my personal collection). Carmona creates vibrant neon sculptures which take into consideration his memories from growing up - places, people, moments all inform the creation of these organic forms. He was recently commissioned by Facebook (Meta) in Seattle to create various large scale colorful sculptures for their campus.

In his words, “A shape, word, texture, or color can activate potent memories, and this sense of nostalgia is key to a reading of my work. The sculptures are abstracted; they aren’t one-to-one representations. Each emotional memory is passed through the sieve of Modernism, creating connections between my remembrances and recollections of the past and the timeline of art history.”

Iván Carmona, Installation view at PDX Gallery, 2019.