Carmon Colangelo

Carmon Colangelo serves as the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, a position he has held since July 2006, and was installed in November 2016. He also holds the E. Desmond Lee Professorship for Collaboration in the Arts. As dean, he oversees the school's academic units including the College of Art, Graduate School of Art, College of Architecture, and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design, as well as the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Colangelo will conclude his deanship effective June 30, 2026.

Colangelo's educational background includes:

• Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking and painting from the University of Windsor in Ontario (1981)
• Master of Fine Arts in printmaking from Louisiana State University (1983)

As a pioneering artist, Colangelo combines digital and traditional processes to create large, colorful, mixed-media prints that explore various ideas about the human experience and contemporary condition, from violent weather patterns and climate to global anxieties and instability. His work represents a significant intervention in modern art, blending gestural abstraction, informal geometries, diaristic ephemera, surrealist afterimages, and architectonic montage. He humanizes technology by modifying surplus mechanisms and teasing out aesthetics dormant in its discarded minutiae. His artistic practice creates a palimpsest where layers reveal traces of earlier sources, forming a woven image rather than simple collage.

Colangelo's recent publications and exhibitions demonstrate a consistent exploration of abstraction, particularly focusing on the intersection of digital processes with traditional printmaking and painting techniques. His work increasingly incorporates folding, cutting, and layering to create three-dimensional wall reliefs that challenge conventional boundaries between painting and printmaking. The recurring themes across his publications reveal an ongoing investigation into how digital tools can expand rather than replace traditional artistic processes, creating what he describes as 'conceptually gray histories at variance with nature and cultural memory.'

His notable awards include:

• Distinguished Alumni Award, College of Art & Design, Louisiana State University (2014)
• Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Service Award (2009)
• E. Desmond Lee Professorship for Collaboration in the Arts (2006)

Throughout his career, Colangelo has maintained an active studio practice alongside his academic leadership. His work has been featured in over 40 solo shows and 150 group exhibitions across the United States and internationally, with pieces collected by major institutions including the National Museum of American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, and Saint Louis Art Museum. Prior to Washington University, he chaired the Printmaking Department at West Virginia University (1984-1996) and served as director of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia (1997).

Colangelo is represented by Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis, Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, and Flying Horse Editions in Orlando, maintaining strong connections between his academic work and the professional art world.