Bio:

Joe Piscopia graduated with honors from The School of Visual Arts, majoring in the Media Arts/Illustration program. Although the work displayed in these five cases may fall under a field different from representational art, which categorizes most of Illustration, his work is quite different from when he attended SVA. He came about this abstract approach after gradually veering towards a Fine Art way of working. Having had some great Instructors such as the late Marshall Arisman, Carl Titolo, Elizabeth Sayles along with Charles Lilly, his work changed over the years. Deliberately, both consciously and unconsciously he found himself straying from realistic representational art as his life as an illustrator became less important. Finding time to sketch abstract images discovering that this was more of what he wanted and where he wanted to go as an artist. Marshall always said that there’s hardly a straight line in the path of an artist’s life and this proved true to Joe’s life. While non-representative he does include elements of light and shadow to these pieces whether linear or geometric in shape or amorphous in form. Having left the Illustration field he found work at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a security guard, which was quite as eye-opening as attending SVA was. Now retired from the Met, his devotion as an artist has been ever growing and expanding, discovering a new world of symbolically creating his art. He was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and continues to live and work there.

Artist Statement:

The art of Joe Piscopia has been refined and defined in a particular practice of creating ambiguous and inorganic forms, using various mediums. A most important facet in his art is his daily routine of drawing and sketching. It’s through this exploration in drawing that he can express and find his thoughts, ideas, which take hold two dimensionally. His paintings all arrive by this process and are a reflection of images and shapes that become revealed through the drawings. By unconsciously drawing and revision, these then become the manner of seeing dreams, thoughts and ideas, along with the many actual shapes he may see in the real world. There are many feelings and emotions which are illusionary along with daily thoughts that take place day to day and it's through all this that form the basis of his art. The premise found in his drawings and the usage of these as foundations expand into finished paintings. What starts as investigations and illuminations are then revealed as verifications of his thoughts, emotions, and feelings resulting in his abstract unnatural art

Website: www.joepiscopia.com | @piscopiajoe

Course: Creating Children's Books | ILC-2559-OL

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