Painting Collection Volume 2
A visual hard bound catalog of Joe's exhibition and installation, la Luz de Jesus in Los Angeles .
Book Highlights
DESCRIPTION
: 72 pages : 1,200 copies only : Hard bound : Hand Signed : Featuring a limited edition, signed lithograph (Joe Sorren finger painting) :
FEATURES
: Introduction by Matt Hall. : The complete collection of featured paintings, drawings and journal notes.
PRICE
: US : ISBN 0-9748032-7-8: $50.00
Matt Hall Introduction:
…A year or so before, I'd been in Joe's studio talking about his then recent acrylic painting, Arcanum for Patron Grey No. 1. The Arcanum painting presents a panoramic view of whimsical creatures working together to communicate through a microphone and a wire into the earphone of a winged girl perched on a cliff; the girl speaks into what looks to be a can with a string. In the background, we see a yellow-ochre sky. I admired the effect of the clouds, their shimmery, vapory look. “It's close,” said Joe. “But it's not quite it.”
The oil paintings for the exhibition, when she was camera, are not just close; they're it. The misty and luminous skies, the lush-watery-otherworldly lagoons and ponds of the series make the viewer feel he's looking through windows from this universe into another more beautiful, resplendent one. Sometimes the brush work is refined and smoothed to a perfect flat surface as in 03 father as father with victrola. But so too is the paint applied so loosely, as in 14 après qu'elle, one can see large globs of paint on the canvas. For each work, Joe used the paint to its best effect for that particular scene. And throughout the series, there's a definite continuity of feeling of one singular, magical, other-realm. And this otherworldly feeling fits perfectly with the metaphysical themes of the narrative Joe is telling with the series.
When she was camera is not a series of paintings one will approach and easily say, “Oh, of course. I get it.” The series takes some work, a lot of looking at and connecting with the images. And for me, it helps if one knows the painter—sort of. In a recent phone conversation, Joe laughed and said, “I wish the guy who painted those pictures was here for you to talk with, but he isn't.” Joe explained. “I was in a very different space then. For about nine months, that's where I was at. But now, I'm somewhere else.”
Joe's wife, Jessica, agreed: “Joe had no expectations. He was in a very peaceful place. I feel like because of that he produced some of his most beautiful work.” Joe described the process like this: “I'd paint a few things and realize, ‘Oh, that has to be this color, and that character has to be here.' And, ‘Now they need to be in this form.' It all made sense to me in an intuitive way. I knew how it needed to be painted even if I wasn't quite sure what it was I was painting. I'm not sure I could've verbalized it to anyone then, and I'm certain I couldn't do it now.” (more copy featured in book)
