By Joe Novak
Located in Surfside, FL
"Voices XXI"
Aquatint Etching • Monoprint
Image: 12”x 14” • Paper: 30”x 22” • 2001
Hand signed and numbered 1/1 on BFK Rives paper.
Joe Novak (1930-2019) California Contemporary Minimalist. His work is about the exploration of color and light through abstraction, with tonal gradations that infuse them with a meditative quality. During the eighties and nineties, he painted large monochromatic color field canvases with tonal gradations and soft edges that infuse them with a meditative quality and a sense of movement. When illuminated they become glowing surfaces of color and light. His artistic background and work link him closely with the first generation abstract expressionists of the New York School. Major influences include Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and his mentors, Peter Busa and Esteban Vicente, whom he met and befriended during the eighties while living and painting in East Hampton. During the nineties, while living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Novak initiated a project called "Light Emanations", in which he created digital computerized programs of changing light levels and configurations on a selection of his large paintings, dramatically illustrating the effect of light changes on color perception. Novak's body of work is extensive and include painting on canvas, panel and paper as well as monotypes, drawings, assemblages, mixed media and prints. He has often worked in series, focusing on a particular medium for years. Among these are "Meditations" (color pencil drawings), "Voices" and "Voices 2" (color aquatint etchings), "Echoes" (painting assemblage with minerals) and "Colors" (350 miniature panel paintings). In recent years his paintings have become more gestural, often with musical allusions. His work bears a relationship to the Light & Space Movement and Minimalism artists James Turrell, Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, Billy Al Bengston, Peter Alexander, Laddie John Dill, Lita Albuquerque. these are also anticipative of the aquatint etching works by Anish Kapoor. Color Gradient, Abstract Art, Land Art. During the eighties and nineties, he painted large monochromatic color field canvases with tonal gradations and soft edges that infuse them with a meditative quality and a sense of movement. When illuminated they become
glowing surfaces of color and light. Critic Christopher Knight wrote, Novak is an unabashed Color Field painter. His paintings and aquatints at Bert Green Fine Arts — the Santa Fe artist's third show there — feature works that will call to mind abstractions as diverse as those by Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko and Morris Louis and the landscape abstractions of Joe Goode. Novak's work is in many public and private collections, including numerous museum collections. He spent his last years living in Palm Springs.
Selected Group Exhibitions
Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago, Illinois
"Joe Novak/Huck Lewis-Bennett: A Collaboration", Stephen Archdeacon Gallery, Palm Springs
Melissa Morgan Fine Art...
Category
Early 2000s Minimalist Art
MaterialsColor, Etching, Aquatint, Monoprint
