Artist Joanne Mattera

Joanne Mattera - Artist Statement

About Uttar

My paintings are succulent in color and surface but reductive in image and mark. I practice an esthetic you might describe as lush minimalism. Simplicity of element has informed my painting for most of my career; sumptuousness comes courtesy of encaustic, which has been my primary medium for almost two decades.

Uttar, my current and ongoing series, is inspired by the brilliant palette of miniatures from Mughal India and the small, refulgent paintings of Renaissance Siena. While illumination—as a visual narrative, or metaphorically as a representation of the divine—was at the heart of these extraordinary paintings, I intend no such narrative in my own work. Certainly there is conversation as colors assert and demur, but I am interested in the experience of color—the way hues interact when they abut, slide under, or slip over one another and the way the retina is piqued by this interaction.

As always, the grid is the conceptual underpinning of my painting. Over or around its structure, I work with a simple geometric vocabulary of dot, stripe or block. I begin each new painting with a general palette (typically, saturated colors mitigated by the translucency of the wax) and a specific geometric element. Beyond that, there is no direct plan. My method is to repeat the chosen element—stack it, crowd it, layer it—into a dense but orderly aggregate. I work serially, so each painting both reflects the ones that preceded it and presages the ones that will follow.

There’s a lot of visual cross referencing—particularly since I often have several paintings in progress at the same time—so you don’t need to know the exact chronological order of this series to understand its logic or see its development. Indeed, I often show the newest paintings with earlier ones, because I think of the series less in terms of linear chronology than as an ongoing opus.

Technically, I do a lot of layering and a fair amount of scraping. The wax allows it, perhaps encourages it. Even when the surface is smooth, it’s often the result of previous layers being brought to the surface. More important, it’s my way of making a painting that is compelling on its own terms, not simply because the wax itself is so beautiful.

In an essay early in the Uttar series,* the art historian Flavia Rando correctly identified my approach: “For Mattera, the process of making art is a process of intuition working within a disciplined framework.” Addressing the Uttar series specifically, she called it “the artist’s response to the material world…a poetics of materiality and process.”

Recently, in her essay “Geometry Reloaded,” * the New York Art critic Lilly Wei, responded to Uttar 250 with this comment: “This is a voluptuous painting, its grid about to melt down, it seems, into pure irresistible paint.” More recently still*, the Philadelphia critic Roberta Fallon, offered this observation about my work: “Mattera…is an artist who delights in the process. With a palette influenced by Indian miniature painting and with a love of non-narrative, non-objective expression, Mattera delivers a world of beauty and order in which individual [elements]—with their spontaneous expressions of color, texture, drip, drop and slather—are valued.”

The Uttar series began in late 2000. Almost 300 paintings later, the series continues apace. I like to think of my work as a controlled version of the unexpected, but the opposite is equally apt. I’ve called the series Uttar because I wanted a word that alluded to India, to the miniatures, without being a direct referent; Uttar Pradesh is the name of a province in India in which the Taj Mahal and the holy city of Varanesi are located. Besides it sounds similar to “utter,” which has resonant associations for me—as in “to give expression;” as in “total and unconditional,” which is essentially what I’m feeling about this work.

Resume

Education

MA, Visual Arts, Goddard College, Plainfield, VT

BFA, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA

Exhibitions

Solo:

2007 Silk Road, OK Harris Gallery, New York City
2007 It’s All About Hue, Isn’t It?, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2006 Heat of the Moment: New Paintings in Encaustic, Arden Gallery, Boston
2006 Pure Color, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2006 10 Years of Encaustic Painting, Winfisky Gallery, Salem State College, Salem, MA
2004 New Paintings in Encaustic, Arden Gallery, Boston
2004 New Paintings, Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ
2004 New Paintings, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2003 New Paintings in Encaustic, Arden Gallery, Boston
2003 Mudra: New Paintings in Encaustic, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2002 Uttar: New Paintings in Encaustic, Simon Gallery, Morristown
2001 New Encaustic Paintings, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2000 New Encaustic Paintings, Arden Gallery, Boston
2000 Verso: Thought, Breath, Memory, Espace Gallery, Manila, Philippines
1999 New Paintings, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
1996 Linear Perspectives, OK Harris Gallery, New York City
1995 New Paintings in Encaustic, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City

Group:

2007 2nd Annual Encaustic Invitational, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson
2007 Red Dot Fair, New York, Invited by Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Larchmont
2007 The Fusion Project, June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland, Maine
Introductions 3, Hidell Brooks Gallery, Charlotte
2006 Flow Art Fair, Miami, Invited by Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Larchmon
2006 Gigantic Small Works Show, Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia
2006 Neo Plastic Redux, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York City (Organized by Miles Manning)
2006 Nancy Manter, Joanne Mattera, Babe Shapiro, DM Contemporary, Mill Neck, New York
2006 Minimal Works, Minimal Works Gallery, Philadelphia
2006 Luminous Depths, Ben Shahn Galleries, Wm. Paterson Univ., Wayne, NJ (Curator: Nancy Einreinhofer)
2006 Order(ed), Siano Gallery, Philadelphia (Curator: Julie Karabenick with essay by Roberta Fallon)
2006 Art (212) Contemporary Art Fair, New York Invited by Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2006 Los Angeles Art Show, Invited by Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2006 A.R.T, Trustman Gallery, Simmons College, Boston
2005 What Did Puck Say? Heidi Cho Gallery, New York City
2005 Engaging the Structural: Geometric Form in Contemporary Abstract Art Broadway Gallery, New York City (Curator: Julie Karbenick with essay by Lilly Wei)
2005 AAF Contemporary Art Fair, New York, Invited by Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2005 Wish You Were Here IV, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City
2005 Cooled and Collected: Modern Masters of Encaustic, Boon Gallery, Salem, MA
2005 Wax: Encaustic Painting in Contemporary Art, Brush Gallery,
Lowell, MA (Curator: E. Linda Poras)
2005 Postcards from the Edge, Robert Miller Gallery, New York City
2005 Color Theory, Schweinfurth Art Center, Auburn, New York (Curator: Kenise Barnes)
2005 Works On Paper Invitational, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2005 Wax Works, McGowan Fine Arts, Concord, NH
2004 Color Theory, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Larchmont, New York
2004 AAF Contemporary Art Fair, New York; Invited by Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2004 Unbound: Selected Artists from Joanne Mattera’s ‘The Art of Encaustic Painting’ R&F Gallery, Kingston, New York (Curator: Laura Moriarty)
2004 Four New York Artists, Patrick Olson Gallery, Plymouth, Michigan
2003 Encaustic Now II, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2003 AAF Contemporary Art Fair, New York; Invited by Thatcher Projects, New York City
2003 Art Santa Fe, Invited by Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2003 Tickled Pink, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2003 Serenity, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2003 Wish You Were Here Too, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City
2003 The Way of Wax, Winfisky Gallery at Salem State College, Salem, MA
2003 Art Miami, Invited by Arden Gallery, Boston
2002 Work on Paper, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2002 Lush Abstraction, Melanee Cooper Gallery, Chicago
2002 AAF Contemporary Art Fair, New York Invited by Thatcher Projects, NYC
2002 Hot Wax, Cummings Art Center at Connecticut College, New London
2002 Artcetera, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston
2002 Works on Paper, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2002 The Postcard Show, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City
2002 Water, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2002 Enkaustikos: Wax As a Contemporary Medium, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2002 Centering, Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Santa Rosa, CA
2002 Generations III, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City
2002 Art San Francisco, Invited by Newzones Gallery, Calgary, Canada
2001 Encaustic Now, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2001 Encaustic Works, Arden Gallery, Boston
2001 The Art of Encaustic Painting, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2001 Encaustic, Encaustic: Joanne Mattera and Friends, Melanee Cooper Gallery, Chicago
2001 Large-Scale Painting, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale
2001 Deck the Walls, Newzones Gallery, Calgary, Canada
2000 Constant Aesthetic, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
2000 Generations II: A Survey of Women Artists at the Millennium, A.I.R Gallery, New York City
2000 The Other Side and This Side: The Art of Italian and Italian-American Women Casa Italiana, New York
2000 Pieces IV, Gallery 128, New York City, (Curator: Sylvia Netzer)
2000 Aesthetic Boundaries, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
1999 Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America, Montclair (N.J.) Art Museum (Curator: Gail Stavitsky) and Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN
1999 Signs, Codes and Surfaces I and II, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York
1999 Pieces III, Gallery 128, New York City, (Curator: Sylvia Netzer)
1999 Los Angeles National, Patricia Correia Gallery, Santa Monica
1998 Contemporary Wax, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
1998 Small Works, Washington Square East Gallery, New York City
1998 Generations, A.I.R. Gallery, New York City
1998 Night of 1,000 Drawings, Artists Space, New York City
1998 Ron Ehrlich, Gregory Johnston, Joanne Mattera, Hiro Yokose, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
1997 Cultural Markers, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
1997 1+1=3: Independent Artists, Collaborative Art, Alicia Torres Gallery, New York City
1997 Material Girls: Gender, Process and Abstract Art Since 1970, Gallery 128, New York City (Curator: Harmony Hammond)
1997 Paper Project, Sally Sprout Gallery, Houston
1997 Inaugural Show, Christine Adapon Gallery, Manila
1996 Cultural Markers, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
1996 Small Works International, Amos Eno Gallery, New York City
1995 Small Works, Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
1995 Virtuosity Art Fair, The Armory, New York, Invited by Stephen Haller Gallery, New York City
1995 A Grand Affair, Art Initiatives at 420 Broadway, New York City
1994 Waxing Minimal: Joanne Mattera, Inger Sand Lee, Tom Sime Denise Bibro, New York City
1994 Signs, Codes & Alphabets, Tribeca 148, New York City
1994 Small Works, Washington Square East Gallery, New York City
1994 The Midwinter Salon, Puchong Gallery, New York City
1994 The Mundane Becomes Beautiful, Cortland Jessup Gallery, Provincetown, MA
1993 93 Wishes for '94, Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York City
1993 Small Works, East West Cultural Center, New York City
1993 Small Works, Denise Bibro, New York City
1993 Works on Paper, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts (Curator: Andre Emmerich)
1982 Works on Paper, Eve Mannes Gallery, Atlanta
1982 Artists on the Grid, Svetlana Rockwell Gallery, Cambridge, MA
1982 Collage: Eleven Contemporary Artists, Wheaton College, Norton, MA (Curator: Pallas Lombardi)
1981 Third Biennial Savaria Museum, Szombatheley, Hungary
1980 Five Artists: Process and Product, Art Colloquium Gallery, Salem, MA
1980 Artist/Artisan, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach
1980 Paper, Hera Gallery, Providence
1979 Paper: Metamorphoses, Florence Duhl Gallery, New York City
1979 Ninth International Biennale de la Tapisserie, Musee des Beaux Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland
1978 New Works, Hadler/Rodriguez Gallery, New York City
1978 Small Works: An Invitational, Touchstone Gallery, New York City

Awards

Grant: Faculty Development, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA
2005 Grant: Artist’s Resource Trust, a fund of the Berkshire Taconic Foundation
1997 Juror’s Award: Painting and Sculpture National, San Jacinto College, Houston; Howard Fox, juror
1995 Juror’s Award: Small Works, Washington Square East Gallery, New York City; Jacquie Littlejohn, juror

Selected Collections

The Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey

University Libraries Collection, State University of New York at Albany

Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts

Alston & Bird, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

Beacon Properties, Boston

Delta Airlines, Boston

McKee Nelson, New York City

Pacific Peninsula Group, Menlo Park, California

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Florham Park, New Jersey

Red Wheel/Weiser Books, Boston

U.S. Embassies, Slovenia and Poland
Consulate of Brunei

Eduardo Calma Architecture, Makati City, Philippines

Private collections: United States, Canada, the Philippines

Curatorial Projects

2007 Luxe, Calme et Volupte’, curator, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2003 The Whole Ball of Wax, juror, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago
1993 Objects of Their Affection, curator, InterArt Center, New York City
1982 Artists on the Grid, curator, Svetlana Rockwell Gallery, Cambridge

Academic Affiliations

Montserrat College of Art, Department of Painting and Drawing, Beverly, MA

Massachusetts College of Art, 2D Department, Boston

Maine College of Art, Continuing Studies, Portland

Visiting Artist

2007 Ella Jackson Chair, Truro Center for the Arts, Truro, Mass.
2007 Visiting Artist, Montana State University, Bozeman
2006 Visiting Artist, Evans Encaustics, Sonoma, California
2004 Visiting Artist, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, Massachusetts
2002 Weissman Visiting Artist, Connecticut College, New London
1999 Visiting Artist, State University of New York at Albany

Talks/Panels

2007 Two Thousand Years to Get to This Point Keynote Speaker, National Encaustic Painting Conference, Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA
2007 Encaustic Painting Panelist, June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland,
Maine 2005 Building and Sustaining a Career in Art Keynote Speaker, Art League of Northern California, Novato
2005 The Art of Encaustic Painting Guest Speaker, The Brush Gallery, Lowell, MA
2005 Encaustic Painting Guest Speaker, River Tree Center for the Arts, Kennebunk, Maine
2004 Encaustic Painting Guest Lecturer, City College of New York
2004 Encaustic Forum Guest Lecturer, R&F Gallery, Kingston, New York
2003 Contemporary Encaustic Painting Gallery Talk, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta
2001 Italian American Women Artists Panelist, Ellis Island, New York City
2000 Material Influences Speaker, Casa Italiana, New York University, NY
2000 Encaustic Painting Panelist, Artists Talk on Art, New York City
1999 Encaustic Painting Speaker, Painter’s Forum, New York City

Authored Publications

2006 JM Blog, my ongoing art blog at http://www.joannemattera.blogspot.com www.joannemattera.blogspot.com
Two Artists Talking, a dialog with the artist Chris Ashley, at http://www.twoartiststalking.blogspot.com www.twoartiststalking.blogspot.com
Encaustic: The “New” Art Medium, Just 2000 Years Old, essay for Luminous Depths, catalog for exhibition of the same name, curated by Nancy Einreinhofer, Wm. Paterson University, Wayne, N.J.
2001 The Art of Encaustic Painting: Contemporary Expression in the Ancient Medium of Pigmented Wax Watson-Guptill, New York
2001 Spirit Maps, Red Wheel Books, Boston; writing as Joanna Arettam
Fiberarts, Editor in Chief

Books

2005 Abstract Painting, Watson Guptill; Vicky Perry
2003 In Our Own Voices: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Italian and Italian American Women, Bordighera Press; Elizabeth G. Messina, ed.
2000 Lesbian Art in America, Rizzoli; Harmony Hammond
1999 Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America, The Montclair Art Museum/Rutgers University Press; Gail Stavitsky, editor

Periodicals

2007 Art New England, Art Criticism on the Internet, Raymond A. Liddell; December/January
2005 Lowell Sun, Whole Ball of Wax, Barbara Rizza Mellin; November 12
2005 Art News, How to Talk to An Artist, Gail Gregg; June
2005 Syracuse Post-Standard, Color This Exhibit…, Katherine Rushworth; May 15
2005 NYArts, On and Off the Grid: In Conversation with Joanne Mattera, Julie Karabenick; February/March
2005 The New York Times, ‘Unbound: Selected Artists’, D. Dominick Lombardi; Jan. 2
2004 The Boston Globe, An Eyeful of Color, Cate McQuaid; December 10
2004 Traditional Home, cover story: A Fresh Shade of Bungalow, Eliot Nusbaum; September
2004 Arts Media, Artists Wax Enthusiastic, Rachel Strutt; March
2003 Boston Sunday Globe, Critics’ Picks, Christine Temin; April 28
2003 Boston Globe, Critics’ Picks, Cate McQuaid; April 18,
2003 Arts Media, Joanne Mattera: Paintings in Encaustic, Shawn Hill; April-May
2003 The Week, Joanne Mattera at Arden Gallery, Boston, April 19,
2003 Scottsdale Republic, Eclectic Mix at Cervini Haas, Roberta Burnett, April 16
2003 IONS Review, portfolio, ed. Barbara McNeill; Issue 62, Dec. 02–Feb. 03; Issue 63, March-June
2002 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Expanding the Possibilities of Paper, Jerry Cullum; November 15
2002 New York Times, Hot Wax, William Zimmer; November 10
2002 Philadelphia Inquirer, Novel Process, Classical Elegance, Edward J. Sozanski; May 19
2002 Philadelphia Weekly, Play On, Roberta Fallon; May 10
2002 Philadelphia Daily Local News, Ancient Medium Explored Again, R.B. Strauss; May 4
2002 Boston Sunday Globe, The Process, profile, Catherine Foster; March 3
2002 Art New England, book review, The Art of Encaustic Painting, Susan Schwalb, Feb/March
2001 Arizona Republic, Beauty of Encaustic Has its Price, John Carlos Villani, November 8
2001 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Waxing Eloquent, Catherine Fox; October 12
2001 Boston Globe, A Clever Pairing, Cate McQuaid; September 14
2000 Manila Today, Art Guide, review; June 6,
2000 The Philippine Star, Gallery News, review; June 5
2000 Art in America, Joanne Mattera at Marcia Wood, Jerry Cullum; March
2000 Design and Architecture (Manila), An Italian Spell in Tagaytay, Alane Ty, February
1999 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mattera Infuses Modernist Grid with New Depth, Jerry Cullum; July
1997 New York Arts, Picks, Christopher Chambers; October
1997 Atlanta Journal Constitution, Four Artists Aimed at the Stars, Jerry Cullum; Oct. 3
1997 William and Mary Review, portfolio, ed. Erica Weitzman; Vol. 35,
1994 Artforum, Objects of Their Affection at Interart Center, Keith Seward; February
1981 Art Voices, Joanne Mattera, profile, Jessica Scarborough; July/August
1981 Driadi, Du Blanc a la Couleur, Michel Thomas; April
1981 Maenad, Joanne Mattera, portfolio; Spring
1980 Sojourner, Risks Pay Off, Jessica Scarborough; August
1980 American Craft, Portfolio, Spring

Catalogs and Essays

Joanne Mattera: Ten Years of Encaustic Painting, for the exhibition of the same name, Salem State College, Salem, Mass., March-April, 2006; essays by Flavia Rando and the artist Joanne Mattera, page 6

Order(ed), for the exhibition of the same name, a group exhibition curated by Julie Karabenick at Gallery Siano, Philadelphia, May-June, 2006; essay, “Beauty, Order and Individuality,” by Roberta Fallon

Geometry Reloaded, Lilly Wei; from the exhibition, “Engaging the Structural,” a group exhibition curated by Julie Karabenick, Broadway Gallery, New York, April 2005

Uttar: Poetics of Materiality and Process, Flavia Rando; from the exhibition, “New Paintings in Encaustic,” Simon Gallery, Morristown, N.J., September-October, 2002