About

Son of Italian immigrants, Ralph Cutillo was born in 1950 and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He has been living and working in Paris for the last 25 years.
The culture and sub-culture in which he was raised along with a childhood parochial education placed him in direct contact with Judeo-Christian mythologies.
Following the ideas of Joseph Campbell, the leading scholar on mythology, Cutillo considers mythology as a manual to life and if looked upon as poetry rather than prose, can be relevant even in a modern world.

The painter makes deliberate use of anachronism. Fragments of these stories represented as a boat, an angel, a cross, a destroyed city, a lighthouse, a raging sea, an arena, or a skull, are symbols and/or instructional metaphors for life, death, love, sacrifice, violence, power, and perseverance are presented in his work.
These metaphors are painted with a unique personalized style, and often are seamlessly united with representations from the painter’s personal experiences all of which combines to tell a story open to interpretation and perhaps enhanced by the viewer’s own personal experiences.

The works are made with a variety of color and varied consistency of material which is applied with a high degree of physical expression all of which combines to make for a visually lyrical (neo-Expressionist) work, where the emotions of the artist and viewer meet.
The paintings appear as if they are quickly made - all at once, but of course they are not. They are a combination of moments of spontaneity put into order, often over long periods of time between each step with a command of the material that creates an elegant, energetic, visually moving, work.
Within the paintings, perhaps not immediately evident, but none-the-less present, are visual references to literature as well as art history and surely contemporary painting.

The painter is obliged, as best he can, to put all of himself into a work with the hope the viewer will come with an openness that would allow a connection to the artist’s experiences.
If that arrangement can be met, then the communication and meeting of emotions on a fundamental level between the work and the viewer is achieved.
Robert Motherwell wrote: «Thru the personal, paradoxically, we touch the universal» and of course the touching of the emotions is the fulfillment of any work of art.

Education

C.W. Post College L.I. University, Greenvale Campus, New York

Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado, majoring in American Literature

Studied photography at The International Center of Photography, New York's photography museum

Worked at ICP, as teacher and lab assistant

Worked as a free-lance photographer

Les Ateliers des Beaux-Arts de Paris

Exhibitions

2022 "Hors les Murs" Réalités Nouvelles, Galerie Noir et Blanc, Bastia, France

2022 "Hors les Murs" Réalités Nouvelles, Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Naples, Italy

2021 Réalités Nouvelles, Réfectoire des Cordeliers, Paris, France

2020 Galerie Abstract Project, Paris, France

2019 "Hors les Murs" Réalités Nouvelles, Budva Monténégro

2018 Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France - Prix Fondation Taylor 2018

2017 Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France

2016 Réalités Nouvelles 70 ans "Abstract Project," Paris, France

2016 Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France

2015 Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France

2015 Comparaisons Grand Palais, Paris, France

2015 Galerie De Buci, Paris, France

2014 Comparaisons, Grand Palais, Paris, France

2014 Sélection Réalités Nouvelles « Hors les murs » National Gallery of Fine Arts Beijing (China) - GUOYI ART MUSEUM

2014 Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France

2014 Sélection Comparaisons,
Palais Racchetta Ferrara, Italy,
Galleria20, Torino, Italy

2013 Réalités Nouvelles Hors Les Murs, Pavillon Cvijeta Zuzoric, Belgrade, Serbia

2013 Comparaisons, Grand Palais, Paris, France

2012 Galerie Sarah Blancardi Kalbache, Lyon, France

2012 « Hors les murs » Sélection Réalités Nouvelles, Grenoble, France

2012 Sélection Comparaisons,
Palazzo Zenobio Venezia,
Castello di Carlo V, Lecce,
Galleria Zamenhof, Milano, Italy

2012 Comparaisons Grand Palais, Paris, France

2011 Chateau Ratilly, Treigny, France

2011 Comparaisons, Grand Palais, Paris, France

2011 Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France, Prix Le Livre D'Art

2011 MAC 2000, Paris, France

2010 MAC 2000, Paris, France

2010- 2002 Réalités Nouvelles, Vincennes-Paris, France

2006 La peinture est-elle toujours aimable ? Maison des Arts, Anthony, France

2000 Galerie Courant d'Art, Paris, France

1987 Galerie Underground Cafe, Stockholm, Sweden