Art in the Open Philadelphia : Joan Becker

Joan Becker

Philadelphia, PA

http://www.joanbecker.com/

My personal interest lies in the selection and combination of color, development of shapes, construction of composition, and clarity and sensitivity of line. With all these elements I am able to tell a story.

I am a painter who is passionate about the physicality of color. To me, and I trust the viewer, there is a visual, physical sensation that occurs when one color is next to another - in harmony. Color, its ability to be luminous, changeable, intensely symbiotic, and symbolic, stimulates at a very primal and intuitive place. To build a painting I find a couple of colors that work together (for example: an orange and a lime-green) - then I mix and place more colors next to each other - a third, a fourth, and a fifth - always experimenting, always searching for new color combinations and juxtapositions, to delight the eye.

Many works are color prisms that break apart realistic forms to reveal abstraction. It is a goal to continue to search for ways to abstract figuration through color.

The colors live in shape and space. The color, shape, and space create air and light in a painting. Colors, in conjunction with line, are all considered when I compose a painting. Through shape and spatial change, there is a conscious attempt to create shifts in perspective back and forth from two and three dimensions.

The figure, still life, and nature paintings make-up my current portfolio. In my figure paintings, I work to create a sense of presence that is both whimsical and psychological. One of my goals is for the viewer to have a moment of recognition, to connect to the story, in ways that deepen our shared sense of the human condition. A good figure painting informs the viewer and creates a personal and intimate connection between the painting and the viewer.

My still life and nature work provide my personal viewpoint of everyday objects. The nature paintings are of plants picked on the way to the studio. They are amassed, overlapped, painted in collage fashion to create immersion, a swallowing up feeling by the natural world, like when one is in a field of high grasses. In contrast, my still-lifes are intended to infuse new meanings into inanimate objects, in ways that are both, humorous and joyful.

For me, the eye/brain stimulation that occurs when one sees an exciting painting is like smelling and tasting a delicious meal or listening to a beautiful piece of music. The sensation can be very intense and memorable. It is always my goal to create this type of painting.

IMAGE: Bird Song, 2010, watercolor

Other AiO Artists

Nancy Agati

Philadelphia, PA

Objects found, the discarded are resurrected as forms to be considered, to be reconstructed things noticed from the periphery are ...

Cynthia Back

Lansdowne, PA

I work as a printmaker and painter. I also use fragments of prints and paintings combined with gouache paint to ...

Michael Bartmann

Philadelphia, PA

"That was the chief difference between Olmsted and the other architects. They wanted to create order out of chaos. He ...

Ellen K. Bonett

Philadelphia, PA

I want to engage my audience. My art is not just a reflection of myself; it is a culmination of ...

Harry Bower

Island Heights, NJ

My entry into the world of craft was through weaving and textile design. Not only were they objects of beauty ...

Barbara Broughel

West Port, CT

My work is primarily conceptual in nature, but somewhat unique in its attention to materials and craft. The works are ...

Zoe Cohen

Philadelphia, PA

My work is motivated by my interests in origin, identity, and place. I seek to create images that address contemporary ...

Brussels Collective

Brussels, Belgium

By joining gestography, sculpture and painting as team-projects in an open and so beautiful space as the Fairmont Park, we ...

Nic Coviello

Philadelphia, PA

Working outside, "in the open", feeling the space, and loosing oneself in the in the infinite gestures of light and ...

Brian Dennis

Philadelphia, PA

The temporary nature of my installations celebrates reﬂection. Combining varied materials such as metal leaf with coffee stirrers, along with ...

Laure Drogoul

Baltimore, MD

For AIO, I will create a small mobile smell laboratory to engage and invite the public to contribute their olfactory ...

Andrew J. Harrison

Hightstown, NJ

Utopia is, at its center, without a center. It exists as a glimmer of light from a door that cracks ...

Ana B. Hernandez and Russell Mahoney

Philadelphia, PA

In collaboration with an architectural designer, we propose an installation studying the metamorphosis of the synthetic space being overtaken by ...

Susan Hogan

Lower Makeﬁeld, PA

I have been making garments all my life - from doll clothes and paper dolls to sewing my own clothes, then ...

Emeka Ikebude

Columbus, OH

Making art, particularly sculpture, is a need within me, almost a compulsion. It is for this reason that I am ...

Leslie Kaufman

Philadelphia, PA

Structures contain within them the seeds of the past, the present, and the future. Housing memory, their walls preserve what ...

Amber Ginsburg and Rebecca Keller

Oak Park, IL

We are collaborators with a great deal of experience in working both in public and with the public in creative ...

Georges Le Chevallier

Garner, NC

As an installation artist I am seeking this outdoor exhibition opportunity due to my strong believe in the creative process ...

Carole Loeffler

Philadelphia, PA

It is the knowledge, investigation, exploration, and continual experience of making that motivates me. It is the desire to explore ...

Chloris Lowe

Philadelphia, PA

I am most comfortable starting out reaching for a piece of wood from which the piece will grow. Though initial ...

Elizabeth Mackie

Frenchtown, NJ

Folk tales, stories, oral narratives and legends are the inspiration for many of my sculptures. The stories' portrayal of women ...

Virginia Maksymowicz

Philadelphia, PA

My goal as a visual artist is to create iconographies that can communicate ideas to a range of audiences. The ...

S. Zachary Martin

Philadelphia, PA

The landscape is an important part of my life. It gives me places to walk, think, play, build, and paint ...

Sarah Jackson Moore

Philadelphia, PA

FABRICATING FABRICATION

Where does reality turn into mythology? How do we remember places and experiences, how do we translate rumor ...

Arpie Gennetian Najarian

Woodcliff Lake, NJ

Making art has always been my way of creating order and capturing the beauty of the lines and forms of ...

Peter Nein

Pottsville, PA

I am continually in awe of subtleties of nature that surround us. This is the origin of my inspiration: the ...

Anna G. Norton

Philadelphia, PA

All of my work as a visual artist attempts to understand and mark the experience of being in the physical ...

Francesca Pfister

Philadelphia, PA

I think of my work as a form of visual archeology. I explore the physical world around me, looking for ...

Carol Philips

Philadelphia, PA

Making art, for me, feels like a jam session among materials, emotions, thoughts, imagination, perceptions, memories, inspirations - and more. The ...