While the group show, A Legacy of Making, continues at the Calandra Institute in New York City through the end of April, my solo, Vico & Swipe, is on view at Arden Gallery in Boston for the month of February. The colors sizzle, even if they do not generate any actual heat. But in the middle of still-dark February, they certainly light up the gallery.  Vico on the left wall, Swipe on the right Both are oil stick and oil pastel on prepared paper. The grid of Vicos consists of paintings each 12 x 9.5 inches; to the left of the grid are two Vicos, 18 ..read more

Halloween is the modern celebration of the pagan Samhain, in which the veil between worlds is pierced and spirits make their way back into the land of the living. It is a lovely concept, so strongly held onto over the centuries, that even Christianity incorporated the ritual into a holy day, All Souls Day, on November 1. Here in Salem, Massachusetts, where I live part of the time, Halloween is celebrated all month, mostly by tourists eager to dress as goblins and witches and by the businesses that cash in on the reveling. I hate the traipsing and traffic of the crowds. More than that, I hate ..read more

  Musings from Melan-a-Lago With the orange-faced former president under investigation by the January 6 Committee and the Department of Justice, the muse suggested I look into what Melania is up to. Turns out she's keeping a journal, too.  July 24, 2022 THE MUSINGS BEGIN Now that Donald is in very much trouble (finally), I begin to think about life without him. Oh, easy to say, “Just divorce,” but I have not only myself to think of—Barron and parents, too. So I wait. I have many burger sent to Donald apartment (extra ketchup, of course). I am hoping for heart attack. I have chic ..read more

  A Legacy of Making  at the Calandra Institute, New York City When you come from an immigrant family, even if you are the child or grandchild of people who arrived here from another country, you live in two worlds: the one that nurtures you at home and the one outside that shapes you with different ideas and cultural norms. This bifurcated reality is so much a part of your existence that you become adept at navigating between two shores, not really thinking about it as navigation but simply as how you live your life.                &n ..read more

Partial panorama of Radical Chrome at Kenise Barnes Fine Art: two by me, three by Audrey Stone, tondo by Julie Maren, three by Jenny Kemp, one by Mary Judge What's the antidote to the waning light of the season? Color! I'm delighted to be sharing the walls at Kenise Barnes Fine Art with four other artists, all of whom are engaged with the power of pigment. The opening of Radical Chrome took place  a couple of weeks ago, but the show is up through January 15. The gallery is located in Kent, Connecticut, in a cultural enclave that consists of contemporary structures and some ..read more

My work from the past year is largely horizontal. On a bisected field there are bands of color on the top half over a more or less monochromatic bottom half. I call the series Tutto because in it I have painted in encaustic, my mainstay medium for the past 30 years, as well as acrylic, oil, and oil pastel. In other words, everything. (Tutto is Italian for everything.) Also, for me color is everything, the simpler the composition, the better. View from Newbury Street in Boston, where my solo, Tutto, is up through November 29 at Arden Gallery In the past few months I have shown, or am showi ..read more

Color: Form and Shape   Four exhibitions up right now in New York City--three on the Upper East Side, one in Chelsea--provide a range of chromatic experiences. Let me show you. At the Met: Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color through March 26, 2023; at John Molloy Gallery: Technic/Color with Naomi Cohn, Stephen Maine, and Melissa Staiger, through November 12; at Jennifer Bahhng Gallery: Sharon Butler: Next Moves, through November 15 At the Met: Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color So used are we to Greek and Roman sculptures in white marble that it is hard to i ..read more

Who doesn't love a studio visit? If you're an artist, studio visits are part of the conversation we have with other artists, with dealers--and, often, with ourselves as we enter the work space with fresh eyes for a new day. The paintings on our walls change as the work progresses. When completed paintings leave for exhibition, new canvases take their place.  The Red Studio, 1911, oil on canvas, 62 x 83 inches, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City Matisse's The Red Studio, painted in his suburban Paris studio in 1911, strikes a chord for most artists. We understand the ..read more

The Joanne Mattera Art blog has relocated.  Find it here: www.joannematteraartblog.com   I've reprinted some of my favorite posts. I've also organized the archives and provided links to the blog you are reading now, as well as an earlier incarnation. The home page of the new blog looks like this: The blog you are reading now, www.joannemattersaartblog.blogspot.com, will remain as an archive.  Here you will find posts from January 2, 2018 to  March 15, 2021. There's a lot of good stuff, so don't feel you have to rush off. An earlier version of the blog ..read more

Previous post: Italianità Introduction Part 1: Immigration and Traditions from the Old Country Part 2: Inside and Outside the Sphere of Ethnicity Part 3: Essay: Two Worlds Un-Fair at at Sikkema Jenkins: Kay Rosen, Prismism, 2020, colored pencil on paper, app 22 x 30 inches (Exhibition closed) I spent a much needed several days  looking at art in Chelsea, the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Bushwick. There was a lot of spirit-lifting color on the walls. Within its chromatic embrace, one could see geometry, reductive rigor, provisional playfulness, bol ..read more