Alfonso Volo

Alfonso Volo (b. 1954) is a painter and sculptor. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York College at Buffalo in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. In addition to philosophy, he studied art, art history, foreign literature, and religious studies. He is a writer and has produced short, animated films. Volo has had solo exhibitions at the Big Orbit Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, New York; Pyramid Arts Center in Rochester, New York; and Adams Art Gallery in Dunkirk, New York, among others. 

Different bodies of Volo’s work were exhibited in Beyond/In Western New York 2005 in both the Burchfield-Penney Art Center and at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. We showed mixed media objects and paintings from series “Are These Not Animals?,” “Post-plaque Abstentions,” “Belated Yarns,” “O Mighty Mouse!,” “Plush and Furry,” “Belated Yarns,” “Crocheted Extensions,” and “Crocheted Rhizomes.”  In 1995, a solo, “dual site exhibition” of his work was presented at the UB Art Gallery and Big Orbit Gallery, which included many large, unstretched canvas paintings.

The Burchfield Penney Art Center also exhibited Volo's work in Reactions to Traction: The Works of Seven Artists in 2003 in connection with the public art project, “Art on Wheels.” The painter, sculptor, and video artist described his work as “forms (which) take on absurdity and humor when they are created in a dialogue between the mysterious and the explicit.” In 2011, he created an interactive installation in the Useum that invited visitors to explore a surreal, dreamlike world with hybrid creatures and soft toys that he had crocheted, and to participate in storytelling.

In the field of education, Volo has been a philosophy tutor for college students, has worked with students in connection with the United Cerebral Palsy Association of Western New York, and taught visual arts and writing. In other employment, he has decades of experience farming, even judging pigeon and poultry shows. He lives in Eden, New York.