PASADENA, CA.- ArtCenter College of Design announces Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits, a site-specific installation debuting a significant triptych from artist and alumnus Matthew Rolston’s most recent series of compelling photographic images.

On view in ArtCenter’s South Campus Oculus Space – at the apex of the new Mullin Transportation Design Center – the exhibition is conceived of as not just an homage to the accomplished mid-career artist, but also as the introduction of an evocative new body of work, one that addresses intertwined narratives of human existence, beauty and the grotesque, and the power of art to connect with the beyond.

Triptych in the Style of an Altarpiece, Palermo, 2013, the focus of the exhibition, rises from the more than fifty portraits Rolston created from his intensive exploration of mummified individuals in the Capuchin Catacombs at the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Palermo, Sicily – the 16th century crypt sometimes referred to as the ‘museum of death’. Representing over three centuries of interment and containing thousands of Palermo’s inhabitants, among them the highest levels of its clergy and the city’s most illustrious citizens, these remarkably preserved, sometimes exquisitely dressed corpses have been displayed for centuries in the ancient crypt’s vaults and wall niches.

In his carefully considered portraits, Rolston reframes these figures not as morbid curiosities but as symbols of beauty, mortality and dignity captured in large-scale, hyper-detailed portraiture that purposefully references the Austrian and Belgian Expressionists Egon Schiele and James Ensor, and the School of London painters, especially Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Utilizing what he calls “expressionistic lighting”, Rolston conveys a startling humanity to these preserved bodies, setting the stage for a dynamic interplay of polarities. The artist’s focus is intimate yet magnified to the point of confrontation, his subjects charged with color – opulent blues, deep violets, and dark magentas – adding layers of implication and resonance to their decaying visages.

Correspondingly of interest are the artist’s references to art of the past. For example, the series title, Vanitas, calls back to an historic genre of 17th century Dutch still life painting that portrays symbolic objects, designed to remind us of our mortality and the folly of worldly pursuits. Closely related to memento mori, another centuries-old form of depiction, the name derived from the Latin for “remember you must die,” Rolston’s portraits exemplify the universal, multifaceted reflections on life and death shared throughout time by humankind.

Rolston’s response to the catacombs is itself layered with his response to the location’s art historical significance. Over the years, the Sicilian crypt has lured a diverse group of artists and photographers including Otto Dix, Peter Hujar, Sigmar Polke and Richard Avedon. Rolston first encountered the crypt through Dix’s 1924 watercolor series From the Catacombs in Palermo, created in the shadow of the First World War, when loss and mortality dominated the artist’s vision. In 1963, Hujar entered the catacombs with painter Paul Thek, an encounter that would later infuse his work – meditations on his circle of friends – rendered against the stark presence of death.

Eliciting a surfeit of emotions, from dismay to awe, to reverence, to melancholy, Rolston’s triptych alludes to the iconic configuration of a Christian altarpiece. Suspended in the ample, curved and light-drenched space of the College’s 950 building, a former wind tunnel, the stylized work, presented more in the style of painting than typical photography, conjures a spiritual space, inviting contemplation. With Vanitas, Rolston challenges the limits of death and decomposition to find elegance within the human form, where photography offers us insight into human mortality and the everlasting impulse to seek meaning in our existence.

Matthew Rolston is an American artist, photographer, and director known for iconic portrait photography of cultural figures of our era, the revival and modern expression of Hollywood glamour, and for his detailed approach to art direction and design. Born in Los Angeles, Rolston studied drawing and painting at the Chouinard Art Institute, Otis College of Art & Design and the San Francisco Art Institute. He also studied illustration, photography, imaging and film at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, where in 2006, he received an honorary doctorate. While still a student at ArtCenter, Rolston was ‘discovered’ by American artist Andy Warhol, for Warhol’s celebrity-focused Interview magazine, where he began a successful career in photography. Over the last four decades, Rolston’s photographs have been published prominently in numerous magazines, including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, and over 100 covers of Rolling Stone. Rolston’s photographs have been widely exhibited at museums and institutions including The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, The Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, among others.

Curated by Julie Joyce, Director of ArtCenter Galleries, the presentation of Vanitas: The Palermo Portraits at ArtCenter represents one in a series of four exhibitions across the city of Los Angeles simultaneously presenting different aspects of Rolston’s Vanitas project. At ArtCenter, the three photographs comprising the artist’s triptych depict two mummified children flanking an elderly adult, representing the dichotomies of sacred and secular, youth and age, life and death.