Sheftel, who met Da Corte while he was still at Yale, says, “I think there are very few people interacting with objects the way he is.” Da Corte’s work ranges in different media, but his favorite is sculpture. He hunts grocery stores, street corners and IKEA for materials for his assemblages that utilize everything from Coca-Cola bottles to fingernails – basically anything what we, as a culture, consume and discard. For his debut show at Joe Sheftel, one of the found objects was a video for Soul for Real’s 1995 song “Candy Rain” --- we look at this thing that was number one on the charts and now it’s completely foreign! For his abstract paintings, Da Corte re-purposes everyday products like discount shampoo, and by doing so asks the viewer to re-examine the items placed closest to their bodies. He is a painter and a consummate collaborator who grays the lines between collecting, absorbing and embedding.
Da Corte has been getting a lot of press, as well as having two exhibitions on this summer! One is a solo show “Fun Sponge” at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, and the other in a two-person solo show at Oko Gallery in New York. Read here an interview from June 2013 where Da Corte talks about his art and inspirations.
