Joy Makon “Around Town, paintings”

440 Gallery

poster for Joy Makon “Around Town, paintings”

This event has ended.

For the third exhibition of our 2022 season, 440 Gallery presents Around Town, an exhibition of landscape and still-life paintings by watercolorist Joy Makon. Joy is a painter of observed life, creating works based on locations and moments that she sees through both everyday activities and while traveling for pleasure. This collection, her second solo show at the gallery, is the outcome of a time during which the pandemic and other issues restricted where the artist could go.

Most recently, New York City and Joy’s immediate Brooklyn neighborhood became the inspiration for her work.Translated through pigment, water and paper, Makon’s richly detailed paintings capture the light, textures, and vibrant color that she found in the streets and parks that she managed to visit during this time.

“I refuse to be at a loss for subject matter to paint,” Joy says. “Walking around with my camera in hand, snapping photographs that catch my attention, is not enough. I need to slow down and observe how the light flows across a building facade, how shadows form beautifully colored shapes rippling with texture and crackling with energy, how the relationship between the horizon and the sky is a tangible thing.” Spending time close to home encouraged her to look at ordinary surroundings with a painter’s eye. Joy notes that she frequently found her subjects within steps of her front door.

Around Town celebrates scenes both well-known and intimate. Cityscapes of classic Brooklyn facades and street views at sunset are joined by vistas from Central Park and The Bronx’s Wave Hill. The most recent paintings include subjects especially close to home: An Ode to a September Garden, a still-life assembled from Makon’s garden, and Small Skies, a series of paintings of the sky as seen from her porch.

What all have in common is Makon’s desire to draw the viewer in through dynamic compositions that have both beauty and strength in presentation. With a fascinating combination of labor-intensive details and impressionistic watercolor passages, the paintings engage the viewer to consider the quotidian realism of her subjects as enlivened with an idealized, aesthetic point of view.

Joy Makon holds a BFA in graphic design and photography from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, where she studied with John Moore, Stanislaw Zagorski and Joseph Scorsone. Her work has been shown in juried and gallery shows and can be found in private collections throughout the U.S. In 2021, Joy became a signature member of The American Watercolor Society. She has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, Society of Publication Designers and the Society of Illustrators, for her work as a magazine art director.

Media

Schedule

from March 23, 2022 to April 24, 2022

Opening Reception on 2022-03-26 from 16:00 to 18:00

Artist(s)

Joy Makon

  • Facebook

    Reviews

    All content on this site is © their respective owner(s).
    New York Art Beat (2008) - About - Contact - Privacy - Terms of Use