Iván Carmona

Iván Carmona (b. 1973) is an American artist who was raised in Puerto Rico where he developed a strong, visual vocabulary of images that have come to influence his work today. These visual emergences span representations of Spanish colonial architecture, dense colorful vegetation, and intricate textures and patterns. Through the use of tropical landscape and traditional cultural idiosyncrasy, Iván's identification with the structures and beauties of his home is distilled and poignant. Employing imagery, form, and texture, Ivan's exploration of the relationships between human emotions, culture, identity, and geographic connections, enables him to capture the complexity, the personality, and the history of his art.

Iván Carmona’s ceramic and glass works exist in a long lineage of abstracted, modernist sculpture that taps into a deep well of nostalgia and indirect association. Inspired by Puerto Rican landscapes, Carmona sifts his own intimate memories through distinct shapes, colors, and textures to give a physicality to the immaterial. The resulting clay forms become universal in their utilitarian means of activating specific human emotion. Their formalist simplicity invites an untranslatable response, a wholly unique echo of the original feeling. Stark, vibrant color mixes with precariously suspended components, opening up a private, inscrutable language that shifts with each viewer.

“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

Carmona received his BFA from the Oregon College of Art and Craft (Portland, OR) in 2015. He has attended residencies at Township 10 and LH Project, and has received fellowships from the Ford Family Foundation, The Student Scholarship Award for Outstanding Academic and Artistic Achievement, the Dean's Scholarship, the Commitment to Craft Scholarship, "Best in Show" at the Hoffman Gallery Juried Student Show, the 2015 NCECA Undergraduate Award for Excellence, the Studio Potter Undergraduate Merit Award, and the Huntley-Tidwell Scholarship to attend the Penland School of Craft. His work has been published in 500 Figures in Clay Vol. 2, 2015 - 2019 CONNECTIVE CONVERSATIONS: Curator/Critic Tours and Lectures, and New American Paintings No. 151, Pacific Coast Issue. Carmona's work is in the collections of the Boise Art Museum, Cedar Hall Seattle, the Crocker Art Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, King County Public Art Collection, Meta Open Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art in Puerto Rico, Portland Art Museum, Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, The Vanport Building, Port of Seattle, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council Portable Art Collection. Carmona is represented by PDX Contemporary Art in Portland, Oregon.