Joyce Korotkin

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My practice incorporates a series of stylistically and conceptually diverse works unified by a primary aesthetic – an attempt to capture the poetic moments, infused with incandescent light, that distill the essence of memory.
The monochromatic landscapes are concept-driven, derived from reality subverted with hidden imagery. Their inherent narratives address environmental concerns and cultural collisions, as well as my formal interest in optical flips between positive and negative space, flatness of surface in opposition to classical illusions of depth, the blurring of boundaries between drawing, painting and photography, and the indeterminate borderline between abstraction and representation.
The encaustic and oil works in full color are complete reversals of this concept-driven process, aiming directly for the emotional jugular. Borne entirely from the unabashedly romantic imagination, they revel in a sensation of suspended time, in the materiality of paint, and the luminosity and visceral texture of wax.

GLOBAL WARMING: 2 DEGREES, NY Story Circa 21st Century
Landscapes in which unnatural changes are subtly hidden or implied within the scenes, bearing witness to the folly of global warming and its deleterious effects on nature. Alligators camouflaged as logs or rocks might be discerned cruising in the distance in a pond, or lurking hungrily by its edge, surrounded by indigenous foliage interspersed with occasional tropical plants; all apparently thriving in New York’s Central Park where the current climate dictates that they do not belong.

BRIDGING THE GAP: Landscapes containing imagery of tropical plants subtly camouflaged amongst the indigenous foliage of New York’s Central Park. These works seek to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western cultures, focusing on what we all share in common – the earth and its inherent beauty – rather than on the cultural and political differences that divide us. These concerns are symbolized by the tropical flora transplanted yet able to thrive in foreign soil.

INCIDENTS & ALLEGATIONS
Landscapes based on scenes from New York’s Central Park, in which hidden clues to implied incidents come in and out of focus. Optical flips between positive and negative space cause one to question what is and isn’t there. Infused with a vaguely ominous feeling and a sense of suspended time characterized by dusk, these works are inspired by the Park’s ghosts; its layered histories in which the 21st Century is superimposed on the past, and refer to the omnipresent sensation in every corner of the park that things are not quite as they seem. The idyllic landscape bears silent witness to, as well as evidence and traces of, the human dramas that unfold within it.

TABULA RASA: Landscapes aimed directly at the emotional jugular. Masquerading as classically based landscapes documenting real places, these images are actually inventions culled from the intoxicating ether of sensation, given to reveling in the sensuality of buttery paint and, as well, in the luminosity, translucence and visceral texture of wax. Unabashedly romantic, they are drenched in poetic evocation, lush color and incandescent light. Erased of externally imposed narrative, they afford the viewer’s imagination a blank slate in which to dream.

BACKWARD, FORWARD & IN BETWEEN: Evocative landscapes that occupy an exploratory terrain hovering between direct observation and the wilds of imagination. After years of working in stylistically and conceptually cohesive series, these works meander in their own unique directions; mavericks roaming freely, bouncing between abstraction and representation, with complete disregard for any ”raison d’etre” that might unify them. Derived from imagination and longing – for beauty, for magic, for enchantment – they are fueled by the sensory moments one experiences, then internalizes as memory, retrievable by sound, scent or an ineffable quality of light. These works evoke rather than state, and are steeped in the shimmering, incandescent sensation of suspended time.

SYNERGISTIC ADVERSARIES: Life-sized portraits of art world characters, from emerging to established, that document a cross-section of the New York art world in the dawn of the 21st century. Included are artists, dealers, museum directors, curators, collectors and critics — from those who create art to those who promote, sell, support, document and ultimately preserve it — all of whom are of equal importance within the synergistic but highly competitive circle of the art world. Comprised of individual portraits originated from life sittings, the series as a whole is a portrait of the era. Like a time capsule, it resonates with an essence of the moment right now, but will, as careers evolve and time passes, become redolent with the scent of art history.