June Kelly Gallery

Joan Giordano Bio

Painting the Printed Word, an exhibition of mixed media wall constructions by painter Joan Giordano, reflects not only her mastery with the paint brush and the art of printmaking and Japanese papermaking, but likewise her steadfast impassioned interest in newspapers’ printed text, will open at the June Kelly Gallery, 166 Mercer Street, New York, on Friday, January 7.  The exhibition will remain on view through February 26, 2022.

Archival international newspapers are basic elements of Giordano’s sculptural constructions.  Having adopted collage as her process she meticulously composes compositions in which the printed word, color, and volume make absorbing alliances.  In the pushing of limits and exquisite positioning of her materials, Giordano achieves volumetrically complex arrangements of surfaces with newspaper rolls, found papers, corrugated board, graphite, paint, and encaustic.  Interwoven is the sense of time in both historical and contemporary thought.

It has been said, Giordano can turn an abstract work of art toward the political without making direct inferences.  Giordano’s art is current even as she intimates a strong connection with the modernist past.  Her selection of archival publications rivet with diverse global issues beliefs and traditions, economics, health, science, and politics.

Lily Wei, art critic and journalist writes Giordano has taken to collecting magazines, newspapers, and journals, including issues that date back decades, partly in anticipation of the demise of paper editions in the future as digital publications become increasingly the norm.  Her
signature newsprint-based works are an act of recuperation as well as one way to shelf a trove of
information within what might be seen as fantasias of the archive.

Giordano was also enamored of paper’s versatility, by what it could be made to represent.  Versatility includes malleability, paper’s ability to assume any shape desired, becoming a sculptural material in addition to serving as a two-dimensional support for imagery.  Two beautifully wrought hands in the round attached to the surface of Over the Top, 2021, made from cast paper, and, underscoring a narrative that supports feminism and economic equity, she tells me that they are the hands of a woman, a worker, writes Wei.

Text matters to Giordano, says Wei, as do titles, words that correspond to the theme of the work are often strategically highlighted.  Life of Wonderment, 2021 speaks to the statement that Giordano reminds us that these constructions are intended to be read as well as visually parsed.  When Wei asked why so many different languages are present, Giordano answered, “There are so many ways to read and write the news, to evaluate truth.”

Giordano lives and works in New York City and Roscoe, NY.  She holds a BA from Wagner College, Staten Island, and an MFA from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY.  Giordano works have been shown in numerous one-person and group exhibitions in the United States and countries throughout the world.  She is represented in numerous public and private collections including the Savannah College of Art and Design, GA; Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Gardens, North Salem, NY; Longview Art Museum, TX; Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT; New York Public Library Print Collection; Awagami Museum, Hall of AWA, Tokushima, Japan; PepsiCo, Purchase, NY; the Henry Buhl Collection, New York, and the North Carolina National Bank, Charlotte, NC.

 

Born Staten Island, New York
Lives and works in New York City

Education
MFA, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
BA, Wagner College, Staten Island, NY
Printmaking Workshop/Bob Blackburn, New York

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021 Painting the Printed Word, essay by Lily Wei, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2020 Joan Giordano, Art Dealers Association of America, Art Show, Park Avenue Armory,
  June Kelly Gallery, New York
2016 Woven in Time: Constructions & Mixed Media, June Kelly Gallery, New York
Out Of Bounds, The White Room Gallery, Bridgehampton, NY
2015 Magical Thinking, Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, Narrowsburg, NY
2012 Spin Out: Constructions, essay by Cynthia Nadelman, June Kelly Gallery, New York
2009 Time Travelers, Serrano Contemporary/Sonnet Gallery, New York
2008 Collective Identities: Works on/of Paper, Lawrence Gallery, Rosemont College, Rosemont,
  PA
2007 Presences, Tenri Cultural Institute, New York
2005 Brambles & Pods, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York
2004 Transforming Textures, Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden, North Salem, NY
Arrested Light & Texture, Ellarslie Mansion, Cadwalader Park, The Trenton City
  Museum, Trenton, NJ
2003 Joan Giordano, curated by Patrick Christiano, Blue Heron Gallery, New York
2002 Uncommon Connections, Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, Narrowsburg, NY
Notes from the Garden, 2 person, Sullivan County Museum, Hurleyville, NY
2001 Skin: Structure & Form, Staten Island Museum, NY
2000 Joan Giordano, The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, FL
Work from Japan, The Robert Furst Center for the Arts, Georgia Tech, Atlanta
1998 Joan Giordano, The American Museum of Papermaking, Atlanta, GA
Branching Out: Recent Wall Sculptures, Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, catalogue
1997 Steel Angels, Gallery East, College of Eastern Utah, Price, UT
1995-96 Steel Angels, organized by Katherine T. Carter & Associates, and traveled to the
  following venues: Lamar Dodd Art Center and Museum, Lagrange, GA; Parkersburg
  Art Center, Parkersburg, West Virginia; Art Institute for the Permian Basin, Odessa,
  TX; Longview Art Museum, TX; and Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, VA,
  catalogue
1994 Joan Giordano, The Broome Street Gallery, New York
Paintings & Paper Sculpture, Benjamin Rosenthal Gallery, Queens College Art Center,
  New York
Steel Angels, Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, catalogue

Selected Group Exhibitions
2018 Green Habitat, curated by Thalia Vrachopoulous, President’s Gallery, John Jay College
  of Criminal Justice, City University of New York; catalogue
2015-17 Whispers, curated by the director Dr. Maria Marangou, Museum of Contemporary Art,
  Cyprus, Greece, travelling to Thessaloniki Gallery, Greece; catalogue
The Empty Spaces Project, curated by Sandra Tyler, Woven Tail Gallery Exhibit,
  Putnam, CT
2017 Celebrating 30 Years, Gallery Artists: Drawing and Photography, June Kelly Gallery,
  New York
2011 Sofia Internationale Biennal, curated by Thalia Vrochopoulos, Sofia, Bulgaria
22nd International Juried Exhibition, curated by Elisabeth Sussman, Senior
  Curator of Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York,
 
Veridan Gallery, New York
The Great Hudson River Exhibition, juror, Bartholomew Bland, Hudson River Museum,
 
Yonkers, NY
Art on the Edge, curated by Rocky Pinciotti, The Hawley Silk Mill, PA
2010 Waxed in Time 4 Takes on Encaustic, Nancy Azara, Joan Giordano, Renee Magnati and
  Kathy Stark, Tenri Cultural Institute, New York
2009 High Fiber, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tuscon, AZ, catalogue
2008 Pulp Function: An Extraordinary Exhibition of Artwork Made from Paper, curated by Lloyd
  E. Herman, organized the Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, Worcester Center for
  Crafts, MA
2006 A Mano, 3 person, The Gallery at Chelsea Eye, New York
2005 Kozo Nexus, Joan Giordano, Lori Goodman, Hisako Kobayashi, Sumi Gallery, New
  York
Invitational, SOHO20 Gallery, New York
First Annual Encaustic Invitational, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tuscon, AZ
2004-07 Paper Cuts: The Art of Contemporary Paper, EXHIBITS USA, Six National Museum
  Venues; catalogue
2003 The World of Paper, curated by Cindy Bowen and organized by the American Museum
  of Papermaking, Atlanta, GA
2002-03 Art in Embassies Program, American Embassy, Vienna, Austria, catalogue
2001-02 Art in Embassies Program, American Embassy, Ankora, Turkey, catalogue
2001 3 From Artist Equity, Blue Hill Cultural Center, Pearl River, NY
2000 Paper Road: International Association of Hand Paper Makers & Artists, Museo Del Corso,
  Florence, Italy, Santa Maria Della Scala, Siena, Italy and Abbazia Di Spineto,
  Sarteano, Italy, catalogue
1999 Fiberarts International, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, PA, catalogue
Waxing Poetic: Encaustic Art in America, organized and curated by Dr. Gail Stavitsky,
  The Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, traveling exhibition, catalogue
1998 Art in Embassies Program, American Embassy, Nicosia, Cyprus, catalogue
1995 New Talent, Alan Stone Gallery, New York
Light, Color Form, Gallery Brocken, Tokyo, Japan

Public and Corporate Collections
Hammond Museum & Japanese Stroll Garden, North Salem, NY
Housatonic Museum of Art, Bridgeport, CT
Longview Art Museum, TX
Savannah College of Art and Design, GA
College of the Desert, Palm Springs, CA
Trenton City Museum, Ellarslie Mansion, Cadwalader Park, Trenton, NJ
Ellen Noel Art Museum of the Permian Basin, Odessa, TX
Awagami Museum Hall of AWA, Tokushima, Japan
New York Public Library Print Collection
Permanent Collection of the Embassy of the United States, Lusaka, Zambia
American Telecast International, Philadelphia, PA
Columbia Broadcasting System, New York
Coopers and Lybrand, New York
Crossland Savings Bank, New York
David Garth Associates, New York
Diray-TV, Wilton, CT
Diversified Pharmaceutical, Philadelphia, PA
Ensslin & Hall Advertising, Tampa, FL
Goodyear Tire Corporation, Washington, DC
Gunn, Fish, Meade Associates, New York
HDH Advisors LLC, New York
Health South, White Plains, NY
Howard Rubenstein Associates of New York
Iowa Methodist Medical Center, Des Moines, IO
John Anthony Design, New York
Lasser Marshall, Inc. New York
Liberty Property Trust, Minneapolis, MN
Media Syndication Global, New York
Merrill Lynch, New York
Metropolitan Savings Bank, New York
North Carolina National Bank, Tampa, FL
Pepsico, Inc. Purchase, NY
Price Waterhouse, Hackensack, NJ
Property Resources Corporation, New York

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