Sebastian Martorana's first solo exhibition with Irvine Contemporary, Uncommissioned Memorials, consists of new sculptures in marble that also represent works in a long-term thematic series. >The works in the exhibition address the themes of everyday objects, memory and memorialization, and the cultural meaning of sculptural materials. Sebastian Martorana utilizes the traditional medium of marble and other stone materials to create highly original sculptures based on domestic objects approached with a masterful realist style. He transforms objects we associate with lightness (cloth, fabric, or paper) into a new reality, provoking a reflection on the metaphors of “lightness” and “weight” as we associate them with cultural forms.

His work reveals a keen understanding of the interplay of artifice and the traditional function of memorials-creating stable icons of memory detached from history or real events. He shows how the codes for memorials, which we know mainly in stone, can be appropriated to create “memorials to the everyday” that may be completely fictive but thoroughly convincing.

Sebastian Martorana also works as a professional stone carver, and he has worked on many "commissioned" monuments in the Washington region. His Uncommissioned Memorials project plays on one of the known roles of the stone sculptor, while turning the idea of "memorialization" toward a new conceptual direction.

Sebastian Martorana received his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and was selected for Irvine Contemporary's Introductions4 exhibition in July 2008. He was awarded a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, in 2008. Sebastian Martorana lives and works in Baltimore, MD