Patterns & Textures | Visual Expressions of a Tactile Urban Environment by Joe Banish
The concrete, metal, asphalt, and glass that compose the complex man-made environment of New York City is in a constant dialogue with the forces of nature — weather, wind, water, time — that look to impose their own will on our structures, buildings, and roadways. The story behind this clash of wills is: Nature always wins in the end. It is inevitable that everything will be reduced to the core elements from which it arose.
Artists Tiziana Mazziotto and Joe Banish observe this battle, finding inherent beauty in the intricacies of its resulting patterns and textures, which they depict in their art.
Tiziana Mazziotto paints patterns and textures inspired by our natural and man-made surroundings. Her visual vocabulary encompasses everything from water and land, to rust and concrete. Her paintings can fall anywhere between impressionistic and atmospheric, to the familiar and hyper-realistic. Color plays an important role in her work, not only in her renderings of existing finishes such as rust, but in contrast to real-world tonalities.
Joe Banish captures photographs of patterns and textures within the structure of our urban environment. Whether his photos display the fractal textures of peeling painted surfaces and crumbling concrete, the rusted patina of metal, or the interplay of human-imposed geometry, Nature’s additions and subtractions feature the basic shapes that are the building blocks of the universe. Patterns and textures blend between the two as hard edges meets organic lines and shapes, defined within the remnants of city life.
The artists present real-world reasons to stop and look — to see beauty in the patterns and textures of urban life as they are shaped through time and nature.
On View: Saturdays in August, 3, 10, 17, 24 (1-5pm), or by appointment
Reception: August 10 (1-5pm)
Artist Talk & Demo: August 17 (3pm)
Joe will discuss his photography process and Tiziana will demonstrate how to make faux concrete textures.
