C. Dennis Guastella

C. Dennis Guastella was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1947 and majored in painting at Wayne State University where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He then completed his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting at Eastern Michigan University. Guastella accepted an Assistant Professorship at South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota and then relocated Michigan to Chair the Visual Arts Department at Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Having retired after thirty years he then began teaching at the College of Penny Stamps Art and Design, University of Michigan where he earned an Adjunct II assignment. While teaching for over forty years he maintained an art studio that continues to this day.

Guastella's work appears in numerous museum, university and corporate collections. Among them are those of the University of Nebraska, Sheldon Art Galleries; Rutgers University; South Dakota Museum of Art; Sioux City Art Center; University of North Dakota, Control Data Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Chicago, Illinois; Livonia City Hall, Livonia, Michigan; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska; National Bank of Commerce, Lincoln, Nebraska; Handleman Corporation, Troy, Michigan; Hackley Art Gallery, Muskegon, Michigan; and Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan. Additionally, his work has earned numerous awards in numerous national and regional exhibitions. Guastella has received two Creative Artists Grants awarded through the Michigan Council for the Arts in recent years.

For several years Guastella's works have integrated a systemic patterning of extruded bead like dots and thin lines of paint in geometric formations. These patterns allude to woven girders or frameworks in an explosion cubist space. A critic referred to the work as “Supercharged constructivism.” Many of his works would include other materials such as string, wood, plastic and silica. Applications of paint give the surface a relief and jewel-like quality.

Now Guastella's work has evolved into “paint collages” where acrylic paint where is poured and worked into with color and marks. After dried the paint is peeled and glued to board or canvas.