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American

1975

Joel Cammarata is an American artist with a background in architecture who uses pen plotters to create compositions where machine-drawn structures meet the immediacy of paint, ink, and experimental surfaces. His practice explores glitches, layered textures, and unexpected material effects, treating accidents and variations as an integral part of the work.

Joel Cammarata. Photo courtesy the artist.

Full Bio

Joel Cammarata is an American artist with a background in architecture who works with pen plotters to create small-scale, mixed media compositions. He began plotting in 2019 using AutoCAD and an AxiDraw, developing a process that combines vector-based machine precision with the tactile immediacy of paint, ink, and experimental materials. His works often embrace glitches, layered textures, and the unpredictability of different papers and pens, turning accidents into central features of the finished image.

Cammarata has exhibited at Bantam Tools’ Machine Arts Gallery in Peekskill, New York, where his CAD-based geometric structures were transformed through hand-applied acrylics into painterly abstractions. His practice has featured collaborative projects, including work with Adrian Hanft on thermal and ledger paper that tested the material limits of plotting, and his inclusion in the international survey Tracing the Line: The Art of Drawing Machines and Pen Plotters (Vetro Editions, 2023). He is part of a social media community of pen plotter artists, where creators and coders share process and techniques, and he takes part in Plot Party, a recurring exchange that invites participants worldwide to experiment, collaborate, and trade works.