May we all enjoy 20/20 vision as we enter a new decade. During 2019 I concentrated on my Roman Elegies series (many of the paintings were sold) in response to a return trip to Rome, one of my favorite cities and surely the most magical, but also a sorely tainted kingdom haunted by silent screams. But nothing is stationary and as usual I explore the constant, energizing flux of  opposites — clarity/mystery, place/displacement.

I post regularly on Instagram, so feel free to check out #josephagutelius !

FYI:   Painting for me is a constant, energizing connecting of opposites — place/displacement, certainty/mystery. As a former playwright, I tend to see the figures in my paintings as characters with an implied before and after, where “beingness” itself is relational and in flux. My primary interest is to capture layers of consciousness, the precarious balance of time/ timelessness, the overlap of memories.

I usually work in series, with different subject matter brought together under one theme, such as “School Days,” “The Shape of Water,” “Silence of Nowhere.”In my latest series, I’ve focused entirely on the narrative of masculinity — men clothed, naked, solid, disintegrating. While male painters have traditionally objectified women as sirens, muses, demons, mothers, etc. I am reaching for a holistic depiction of maleness, not as “mankind” but as a specific gender in a state of disarray and off-balance, which reflects my feelings of where I stand today as a female (feminist) artist looking at men– an anxious stance. In my series “Silence of Nowhere,” I’m capturing the sense of expectancy, of looking outward, but also searching from within. My practice often involves taking the same scene and varying it slightly in different panels, like frames of a film, to signify the passage of time. I start with ink or charcoal and add thin layers of acrylic and watch a drama unfold.

2018 I sold more drawings and paintings than I ever have in the past 4 years of switching from being a writer to being a visual artist. Much of the sold work was via ShoutOut Saugerties, the Saugerties Artists Studio Tour, and Emerge Gallery. Also, I must express my thanks to the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for a generous grant in 2018.

Now, for a look at some new work from 2018, not at all comprehensive, but selections from several ongoing series, including a new series, Roman Elegies (certainly to be continued).