IS THIRE END OF THE RAINEBOW?
An exhibition of artwork by Albert Costanzo
March 28 - April 19, 2025
Elisabeth Flynn-Chapman Gallery
About the artist: Albert Costanzo
Born 1959, West Point Military Academy
Lives in Orange, Virginia
Albert Costanzo’s art practice — his line quality, choice and application of color, handwriting and spelling — is evidence of a deep, practiced, and unbounded artistic expression. Take in the meticulously rendered bees and flowers that make up Fun Spring, they nearly vibrate right out of the frame, their colors and lines in a lively and lovely struggle for our attention. See the tender studies of Jupiter, our sun, the clouds in Friends from Outer Space? Don't they remind you to look more closely and think more deeply about the things you can and cannot see?
Aly has been fascinated with the solar system, space travel, and extraterrestrials since watching NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft launch from Cape Canaveral in 1977. “I’m interested in everything,” he says, “outer space, insects, airplanes, meteorology, physics, weather... I watch the sky everyday.” This commitment to the observable word fans a practice that transforms the familiar into a cosmology of extraordinary detail and personal interpretation.
Anyone who reads curatorial texts knows that artmaking is often subjected to interpretation that stifles life out of creative expression. Aly sidesteps this by dedicating himself to the rendering of both the fantastic and the subtle nuances of his environment. His insects dance, his flowers buzz, his clouds are architecture each work of art shares a mind deeply invested in the fundamental mysteries of existence.
IS THIRE END OF THE RAINEBOW? was curated by Michael K. Lease and organized by Milk River Arts with Artspace Gallery. Milk River Arts is Sally Kemp, Founder + Director, Kacie Shortridge, Claiborn Riley and Hayden Ireland, Mentor Artists. Special thanks for everyone who has helped honor, celebrate, and promote Aly’s work.
About Milk River Arts:
With a few brave exceptions, the professional art world has historically kept those with cognitive differences at arms length. At Milk River Arts, the notion of disability is turned on its head. For us, neurodiversity isn’t a clinical term but a source of creative power. We aim to do something genuinely radical — Connect and empower a neurodiverse community of artists.
Maybe most radical is the fundamental truth Milk River Arts lives: Art originating from unique cognitive perspectives possesses intrinsic market value. And Milk River Arts offers more than a platform for making creative ideas tangible; through networking, targeted partnerships, and commercial exhibitions, it provides a financial means, asserting that neurodiversity yields not a deficit, but a marketable brilliance. Milk River Arts teaches that celebrating and purchasing art can be a transaction of respect, benefiting both artist and collector. In a culture prone to confusing sympathy with patronage, this feels refreshingly right.
Albert Costanza
Albert Costanza
Albert Costanza
Albert Costanza