Introducing My CPA, The Artist and Entrepreneur, George Caramanna

Dear ______________

As you may be aware, Charles Ives and Wallace Stevens stand out among the icons of 20^th Century American art. Both were successful businessmen and remarkably creative artists, the former as a composer, the latter as a poet.

My friend, George Caramanna, is also a businessman and artist. What's more, I believe that his work as a fine artist deserves your serious consideration, for it reflects a level of commitment, professionalism and creativity that is, in fact, rarely found in a single individual.

If you can, set aside your skepticism until after you have viewed the excerpted pieces on the enclosed DVD. A first viewing will require only five minutes of your time.

Consider that inspired creative energy has a way of popping up in the most unexpected places and times. As someone who has known and watched George Caramanna's creative activity for 20 years, I can assure you that he is completely disinterested in self-aggrandizement. He is, however, confident that his current work makes a significant contribution to our visual vocabulary. And in this, I concur.

What George has done, as this DVD will demonstrate, is marry two distinctly separate media-animated, digital imagery and traditional painting - into a unique new genre.

The rest of this letter is a brief biography of George Caramanna. If you are not already intrigued, perhaps the following information will convince you that an artist worthy of your valuable time and attention created the accompanying work.

George Caramanna is a successful CPA. He is a partner in a Scottsdale, Arizona-based firm with a clientele composed largely of successful professionals, businessmen and investors. He is also the visionary behind a recently patented financial analysis software package currently in the final stages of development (www.financialzinc.com). George Caramanna is also an exceptionally creative fine artist with the intelligence, drive, ability and means to create a unique new genre.

When I met George Caramanna some twenty years ago, he was a young father, a CPA for one of the then extant Big Six accounting firms, and a nascent artist. At first, George concentrated on drawing. He drew and drew and drew. Somewhat later, he turned to oil painting. From the beginning, he was concerned about craftsmanship. How to prepare a canvas. How to work up the surface. How to look at a painting.

George was loaded with barely contained creative energy. He had originally prepared for a career as a classical guitarist at the ASU School of Music before deciding that he needed a more practical way to earn a living.

George progressed quickly. Nor was he bound by convention. He quickly passed from realism to a highly personal, very painterly, expressionism charged with the kinetic spatial qualities reminiscent, at times, of Matta, and at other times, the intimate stillness of Peter Blume. His own family appeared again and again, in various guises, within his paintings, as did elements of his Catholic faith. He painted his wife covered with cactus spines in brilliant, day-glo color. He painted a fierce, tightly cropped portrait close-up of his son, George Jr., in hot pink and alizarin red.

George's reputation as a CPA grew apace with his commitment to making fine art. However, recognizing the conservative nature of his clientele and colleagues, George carefully separated his profession from his passion. His clients, many of whom are extremely successful and wealthy people, have no idea that their CPA has a second life as "an artist."

In life drawing, his nudes became skeins of pulsating lines. Imagine the lines of a 16th Century etching scrambled by an eggbeater. He began painting on alternative materials, and eventually discovered foam core, and then, plexi-glass. After about ten years, I thought his work was worthy of gallery exposure. George didn't. He wasn't concerned with showing or selling. He certainly didn't need the money.

George tried drawing with his computer. It fascinated him. He hand drew and scanned images, then "painted" them in PhotoShop. He played with the generation of serial images. He continued to paint.

About five or six years ago, George hit upon the idea of combining mobile and static images. He purchased a plasma screen. He made paintings of body parts so composed as to be almost unrecognizable, on foam core. Then, he laid the foam core paintings next to ever so slightly moving images based on the same or related body parts. George had observed that nothing "live" was ever truly without movement, and tried to capture his models' moving stillness.

Inspired by the possibilities of digital technology, George purchased movie studio-quality digital editing software and hardware, then spent weeks in California getting the specialized training needed to use them. As became increasing adept with the software, his imagery grew more complex. He applied his extensive knowledge of classical and contemporary art music to the development of musical "scores" to accompany his images. He returned to painting on plexi, and overlaid the semi-translucent images on and beside his plasma screen, creating hybrid "animated paintings" in which collaged moving images appeared adjacent to the painted surface.

The "narrative" aspect of George's animated paintings has most recently evolved from a sort of visual prose to visual poetry. The work comes at you quicker, with greater spontaneity, and like poetry, is more freely associative.

George's drawings have also become more and more interesting, fresher and more relaxed. The tangled linearity of the early drawings has become a concentrated mass of line, graphic and playful. Many of them are simply wonderfully alive. They can be humorous and, sometimes, troubling. But they are very "now" and pretty wow.

Some twenty years after he first introduced himself to fine art, George Caramanna is ready to share his work. I cannot guess whether you will like or appreciate what you are about to see. Just keep in mind that the pieces presented on this DVD are just that: pieces of larger works. Regardless, prepare to be surprised.

Sincerely yours,