"Cordell’s artwork, at once beautiful and shocking, reveal a campaign against the standardization of beauty given to us by the ancient Greeks. Cordell is a modernist. His people self-sufficiently and unself-consciously inhabit a world of their own—an unconscious striving that motivates many of us—but their exaggerated and sometimes distorted depiction ruptures our classical notions of beauty. Beneath their elegant, civilized veneer, you will find that his subjects deliberately display their interior longings, their idiosyncrasies that would otherwise be squashed by social decorum. They teach us that people can’t be viewed only in terms of idyllic outward appearances."

Excerpt from issue one of Art House Press magazine
Written by Pam Emigh-Murphy       

Today, the names Cordell Cordaro and Rachel Cordaro are at the top of Rochester’s art scene. Talk with nearly anyone in Rochester who holds even a marginal interest in art and she knows of the Cordaros. Cordell’s swanky portraits of the bourgeois lifestyle hang in restaurants and bars across this city and beyond; Rachel’s beamish blossoms are sold by the number in Rochester’s high-end boutiques. As an art collector, it’s hard for me to choose which of Cordell’s posh beau monde I like best, and I’ve fallen into the habit of switching out Rachel’s floral canvases as if they were a vase of fresh flowers plucked weekly from the backyard garden. The fortunate problem becomes which to choose and where to hang it next. - Pam Emigh-Murphy

Cordell Cordaro’s colorful crowd of characters seem to have walked out of many different types of story-realms. Some you might mistake for elegant extras from the Great Gatsby or Casablanca -- poised, preoccupied and cocktails cast in supporting roles. Others hail from fairytales and take on that magical, mythic quality to quicken our inner child -- tiny women cling to soaring sparrows, and a host of other feathered fellows wear jaunty hats and seem about to chirp a little message to the viewer. Dancers are engaged in a permanent twirl, locked in each others’ arms and private worlds.

Stylistically, Cordaro’s party-scene works nod to Egon Schiele’s elegant waifs, in which anatomical distortions convey emotional truths, but his gestural brushstrokes and playful, mythic injections make his prolific portfolio firmly his own. An increasing master of several media, Cordaro’s work includes paintings, ink drawings, and combinations of the two. His beloved oeuvre has found patrons across the world. The artist participates in shows in New York City and Florida, and his work has also reached audiences in California, Greece, Singapore, and the UK.

It is no wonder that Cordaro’s clients, who he holds in high esteem, clamor to his shows early to get first pick. Fans pack his booth and make it their business to buy Cordell Cordaro’s paintings.

If you look closely, you will begin to notice his subjects are less deliberate individuals than vignettes of familiar-to-youth, intimate moments bubbling just beneath the playful adventure stories or the glossy, fashionable veneers of the elegant life. With studied skill, Cordaro conveys a sense of fragile beauty born within each figure.

Art gives insight into the human spirit that words cannot. Cordell puts it this way: “Human language,” he explains, “is limiting in what we can express creatively or what we can experience. Artists think a lot. They have impressions inside their head. But when we try to put words to these impressions the meanings get lost. So when a painter sees a blank canvas, they thinks to himself ‘ok, let’s do this.’ The abstract meanings that are inside come out on the canvas, the inner emotion, the passion for life, it all comes out on the canvas.”

Cordell's captivating artwork has traversed borders, captivating art enthusiasts and finding its place in prestigious private collections across the United States and beyond. From Singapore to the United Kingdom, Spain, and Toronto, Cordell's art has left a lasting impression on diverse global audiences.