Joanne Mattera: "Celebrating 25 Years with Arden Gallery"
a mini retrospective exhibiting a selection of the artist's ongoing series
March 8 - 31, 2025
The artist will be in the gallery to greet collectors and vistors
on Sunday, March 16, 2 - 4 p.m.
"At a time when galleries come and go, when an artist/dealer relationship can be as short as a single exhibition, longevity is a rare thing. I am one of the fortunate ones, to be celebrating 25 years with Arden Gallery, a Newbury Street institution that has been in business for 38 years. I joined the gallery in 2000 when Hope Turner, who founded Arden, was at the helm. I have had the pleasure of working with owners Zola Solamente (Director of Arden Gallery since 1999) and her partner, Rick Boomer. Together we have had numerous successful and well-received solo shows. This one is Lucky 13, and I couldn’t be happier or prouder to celebrate this milestone with them. And a special thanks to the Arden collectors who beautify their homes with art. Their support allows us to keep doing what we do." - Joanne Mattera, February 2025
click images to enlarge
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 457," 2019, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
I titled this series Silk Road not only because of the fabric-like shimmer, but because of the way my ideas about the interaction of color and surface travel from painting to painting, a long road of chromatic and textural expression. I would be lying if I said that the natural world didn’t creep into my visual thinking. The morning sky, light on water, sun and shadow, and the crepuscular horizon surely tinge the chromatic consciousness of a painter, even one who is committed to reductive abstraction. Nevertheless, I remain resolute in the idea that the paintings in this exhibition are formal explorations of color, field after field of non-objective thought expressed in paint.
- Joanne Mattera, November 2020
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 469,"
2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 496,"
2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 425,"
2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 456,"
2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
"Silk Road is chromatically juicy and compositionally reductive. I refer to it only partly tongue in cheek as “lush minimalism.” Each painting in the ongoing series is a small color field achieved by layers of translucent wax paint applied at right angles. The series was inspired by the shimmery quality of iridescent silk, hence the title, but quickly evolved into more expansive explorations of hue and surface. In plying a richness of paint against the austerity of a (very subtle) grid, I set in motion a small-scale dynamic in which more and less jostle for primacy. - Joanne Mattera
Joanne Mattera: "Celebrating 25 Years with Arden Gallery"
click to enlarge images below & show details for 12 x 12 inch Silk Roads
click images to enlarge
"Call and Response began in 2024 as a limited series of small works on paper made specifically for an exhibition in Japan. I placed a square color field onto 8 x 8-inch paper, leaving a border all around. The field itself was divided horizontally by a band of color at the top. I layered colors so that by scribing into the surface, I could reveal some of what was underneath—a call and response between above and below, as well as between the two sections of the divided field. I called the series Graffio, Italian for scratch. With the work sent off, I thought I was finished with the series. To my surprise, it continued to call to me. I had no choice but to respond. In continuing the series I scaled up, working on the same 300-lb. watercolor paper, but at 22.5 inches, the width of the standard sheet of watercolor paper. I used the same mediums: oil stick over oil pastel. At this larger size I am more physically involved with the work, with the reciprocity of incursion to surface, of color to line. Each mark must be addressed by another. The series named itself by the call and response of its making. I renamed the small pieces to bring them into the fold." - Joanne Mattera, 2025
click images to enlarge
Joanne Mattera, "Call & Response 21," 2025, oil stick on 300-lb. hotpress, 22.5 x 22 inches, $3,000
Joanne Mattera, "Call & Response 26,"
2025, oil stick on 300-lb. hotpress, 22.5 x 22", $3,000
Joanne Mattera, "Call & Response 13,"
2025, oil stick on 300-lb. hotpress, 22.5 x 22", $3,000
Joanne Mattera, "Call & Response 31,"
2025, oil stick on 300-lb. hotpress, 22.5 x 22", $3,000
Joanne Mattera, "Call & Response 17,"
2025, oil stick on 300-lb. hotpress, 22.5 x 22", $3,000
Joanne Mattera, "Call & Response 32," 2025, oil stick on 300-lb. hotpress, 22.5 x 22 inches, $3,000
Chromatic Geometry: "Compositionally you may see triangles, but I’m thinking about the division of the diamonds into greater or lesser amounts. It’s not mathematical but it is precise, allowing me to resolve relationships of color and shape. In some paintings, the grid appears to be quietly disassembling; in others, all the pieces seem to have clicked into place.” - Joanne Mattera, 2014
Joanne Mattera, "Chromatic Geometry 6,"
2014, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Joanne Mattera, "Chromatic Geometry 34,"
2014, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
click images to enlarge
Joanne Mattera, "Chromatic Geometry 15,"
2014, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Joanne Mattera, "Chromatic Geometry 20,"
2014, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Diamond Life: "For the past several years I have been mining diamonds. In an “aha” moment I oriented a square painting on its diagonal axis. The result was a new series, Diamond Life, in which a grid of attenuated rhomboids inhabits a diamond-shaped field. The grid remains the focus of my formal concerns, but the diagonal allows me a different way to approach it. In the newest Diamond Life paintings I have fractured the structure—faceted it on a flat plane, you might say.”
- Joanne Mattera, 2013
Joanne Mattera, "Diamond Life 19," 2012, encaustic on panel, 22.5 x 22.5 inches, $4,400
click images to enlarge
Joanne Mattera, "Diamond Life 31," 2022, encaustic on panel, 25 x 25 inches, $6,400
UTTAR: "Uttar, the longtime series (begun in late 2000), 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."
- Joanne Mattera, 2004
Joanne Mattera, "Uttar 295," 2006, encaustic on panel, 36 x 36 inches, $8,900
Joanne Mattera, "Uttar 252,"
2004, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
click images to enlarge
Joanne Mattera, "Uttar 258,"
2004, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Joanne Mattera, "Uttar 5," 2004, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
"I called the series Uttar because I wanted a word that connected to the paintings whose colors inspired me. (Some names I ruled out immediately: Siena--too evocative of a particular color. Madras, Bombay, Calcutta--too evocative of fabric, Bollywood, the teeming masses.) Uttar resonated. 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 signifies for me—as in “to give expression,” as in “total and unconditional,” which is essentially what I’m feeling about this work. " - Joanne Mattera, 2004
Joanne Mattera, "Deja Vu," circa 2000, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Mudra: "A simple definition of “mudra” is “hand yoga.” If you look at Hindu statues, you'll see a variety of graceful gestures. When I began this series, which didn’t have a name for the first ten or so paintings, I found I had to hold my brush in a particular way to create the kind of drip I wanted. It felt like a mudra and looked like a mudra, and it required the same relaxed focus, so the series named itself. As for the paintings, my aim is to work with color in the broadest possible way with the simplest possible vehicle: drop after drop after drop." - Joanne Mattera, 2003
Joanne Mattera, "Mudra 17," 2003, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Joanne Mattera, "Mudra 2,"
2003, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
Joanne Mattera, "Mudra 11,"
2003, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches, $2,400
"Tutto, a new series begun in 2022, continues the formal themes I have been working with for the past several years: a divided field, strong emphasis on the horizontal, and saturated color. A swipe of the brush from edge to edge allows me to effect chromatic adjacencies that jar, pique, or please the eye.
Tutto, Italian for “everything,” is my way of saying that all the mediums and materials I have worked with over the years are incorporated into this series: encaustic, oil, and acrylic, on canvas, panel, and paper, in sizes and proportions large and small. This is not to say that I am working with a material mishmash, but that I have embraced the entirety of my experience to create discrete works in specific mediums within the conceptual parameters of the series."
- Joanne Mattera, 2022
click images to enlarge
click images to enlarge
Joanne Mattera, "Tutto 18," 2022, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
Joanne Mattera, "Tutto 20," 2022, encaustic on panel, 24 x 24 inches, $6,400
Joanne Mattera, "Tutto 11," 2022, encaustic on panel, 36 x 36 inches - SOLD
Joanne Mattera, "Tutto 13," 2022, acrylic on panel, 48 x 40 inches, $14,000
2022 Catalogue
"TUTTO AND RELATED WORKS"
by Joanne Mattera
To view and/or download for free click link here:
https://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/2307821
Joanne Mattera, "Tutto 14," 2022, acrylic on panel, 48 x 40 inches, $14,000
Additional works from the Silk Road series
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 484," 2022, encaustic on panel, 24 x 24 inches, $6,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 488," 2022, encaustic on panel, 24 x 24 inches, $6,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 459," 2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 468," 2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches, $4,400
Joanne Mattera, "Silk Road 464," 2020, encaustic on panel, 18 x 18 inches - SOLD
click images to enlarge
ARTIST STATEMENT
“I titled this series Silk Road not only because of the fabric-like shimmer, but because of the way my ideas about the interaction of color and surface travel from painting to painting, a long road of chromatic and textural expression. I would be lying if I said that the natural world didn’t creep into my visual thinking. The morning sky, light on water, sun and shadow, and the crepuscular horizon surely tinge the chromatic consciousness of a painter, even one who is committed to reductive abstraction. Nevertheless, I remain resolute in the idea that the paintings in this exhibition are formal explorations of color, field after field of non-objective thought expressed in paint." - Joanne Mattera
Joanne Mattera reviewed in the press:
Joanne Mattera at Arden Gallery:
"Sheer, luminous, living, wafting color."
—Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, December 4, 2020
"Joanne Mattera’s monochromes exude luscious indulgence.”
—Daniel Kany, Maine Sunday Telegram, December 29, 2013
"Appreciating (Joanne Mattera's) "Silk Road" solely on the basis of its tour-de-force technical achievement would be to miss the richer sphere that the work inhabits. Each painting contains the inherent mystique invoked by the series, which is to say, each piece promises a journey full of visual delights without a specific roadmap. Color on the scale of intimacy that Mattera achieves is a powerful experience.”
—Liz Hager, Venetian Red, February 2010
“Over the years Joanne Mattera has gradually reduced the imagery in her work to finally arrive at this celebration of color and surface.”
—Joseph Walentini, Abstract Art on Line, May 17, 2007
“Joanne Mattera is one of the acknowledged American authorities working in encaustic.”
—Philip Isaacson, Maine Sunday Telegram, Feb. 18, 2007
Joanne Mattera at Arden Gallery:
“Mattera revels in the medium’s stained-glass-like luminosity. She’s a colorist whose principal concern is how tones interact and play off one another . . . Throughout, there’s a sense that light is powering these works.”
—Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, December 10, 2004