Carmelo Pampallona

Carmelo Pampallona, born in 1953 in Sicily, graduated in 1972 in graphic design from the Instituto Europeo in Milan, Italy.

Pursuing a business opportunity as a graphic artist in Cape Town, South Africa, Carmelo departed Italy in 1974 .

Eight years later he moved to Brazil and now has spent the last twenty years in the United States providing architects, interior designers and private collectors with remarkable artwork. We are taught to fear death, and wonder about heaven and hell and where we will go when we die. But we never really die; instead we change form and live on. I know this, and through my work, want to share the experience of this knowing.

Separating from preconceptions, I am birthing my work as nature does, evolving at the very same moment.

Click here to read about Carmelo in Vero Life Magazine

Artist Statement

My work is about a search for life origins. I believe Life is God. I explore the philosophy of evolution, reincarnation and eternity, and the concert between them. These concepts work in a circle and define existence. They are interchangeable. I consider the notion that the same matter is used over and over again throughout eternity. A tree, for example, lives, falls, and turns to mulch. In its place, another tree will grow.

World religions teach us that God creates us in the blink of an eye, and that we evolve with guilt, sorrow, and shame that comes from sin, human fallibility and our inadequacies. I believe we evolve without guilt in a splendid earth, and find comfort in considering our origins from a scientific perspective. I imagine we are all variations of the same seed, of the same microorganism, and from those same origins, have each evolved into different beings. Since we come from common origins, I imagine we are all part of each other, all related, brother and sister, and that no one is dominant over another.

In our evolution, we are transformed through reincarnation. Our parts are interchangeable, and we recreate ourselves from the same matter that animals and plants do. One of my pieces, Food for Thought, is a tomato with a brain, and represents my notion that nature is intelligent. Two summers ago, a tomato in my garden spiritually shared that it was also made in the image of God. I then realized all that exists is made in God's image.

My piece The represents eternity, and shows what I imagine to be electrons detaching from an atom of a dying thing, and moving to reattach to atoms of a living thing. This reattachment makes the energy of the electron eternal, and thereby makes life eternal. I call electron’s energy Mime Energy, and believe that it molds our universe, and that every living thing is made of it.

This body of work, like life itself, is evolving and will never reach an end. But the pieces here represent, at least, a start and a finish, a head and a tail. I keep the pieces together to illustrate how the parts of my philosophy are integrated. I have been a craftsman for nearly thirty years and enjoy the natural feel of stone, bronze and wood in my hands. I have made the pieces in my exhibit of these durable materials; I want my message to last a long time.

—Carmelo Pampallona as edited and proofed by Alyssa Banta