CARMINE SACCARDO

AMERICAN, B. 1958

Carmine Saccardo was born in Boston, MA, in 1958. He is a visual artist living and creating in the Boston Metrowest area. He works with a wide range of media including paint, photography, metal, glass, neon, and LEDs.  He has always been interested in lighting, and he incorporates it in many of his works.  As a child he became fascinated with light by watching his father create crystal chandeliers and lighting fixtures in his spare time. Early in his career, he took this fascination to the stage where he designed lighting shows and special effects for live concerts and performance venues. Here he realized that, as a medium, light emanating from within art adds a particular energy and dimension. While working on a project, redesigning the lighting system for a major Boston nightclub, he came across some old neon tubes and incorporated them into the design.   This led to him eventually starting his own neon design and fabrication company.  There he worked on designs for restaurants, nightclubs, shopping malls, live events, public spaces, television commercials, movies, and on and off-Broadway shows.  His company allowed him the space and resources to further develop his personal art. 

His most recent works incorporate painted aluminum and LEDs. With simple hard lines, geometric forms, and a minimum of color, the light source is then hidden behind fabricated metal tubes and structures and becomes the life force of the object.