Earth, 2016

$2,500.00

Using a recycled piece of Plexiglas from another project, I sought to experiment with the elements of painting—using heavy gesso, mixing acrylic with oil and finally using a high gloss varnish to complete the piece. It occurred to me I had painted terra firma.

• Materials

• Earth, 2016: Joan Raspo
• acrylic, oil, and gel tar on plexiglass

• 31 x 24 inches (78.74 x 60.96 cm)

Arctic Summer, 2015-2017

$1,700.00

I began this painting in 2015. It went through much iteration looking nothing like this final piece. I began to think about how to capture a summer in the Arctic—which is short, cold with a sun that rarely sets. I layered mesh onto the landforms to bring out sharp glints of ice breaking apart. It seemed natural to paint this landscape in black and white. Brrr. Are you cold now?

• Materials

• Arctic Summer, 2015-17: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic over a digital c-print giclée canvas (framed)

• 21 x 35 inches (53.64 x 88.9 cm)

String Theory, 2017

$1,100.00

This painting took a lot of twists and turns. It began when I became fascinated with Clayton Valley in Nevada. The vast desert is rich in lithium waiting to be mined. Lithium is the key component in the batteries which run our Tesla’s and other <cough, ahem> EV vehicles. I decided to add string as a surveyor might. The final touch are several strips of red plexiglass highlighting crucial deposits of “white gold,” or, Lithium.

• Materials

• String Theory, 2017: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, spray paint, string, brass tacks and plexiglass on canvas

• 23 x 30 inches (58.42 x76.2 cm)

Evidence 01, 2015

Sold!

Oh, what a long history this painting has. Originally, it was a print given to me from a friend. It seemed ordinary until I researched its origins. The SS United States was a state of the art luxury liner in the 1930’s. When I moved to Santa Cruz, I missed New York City and began painting over the print to create the explosive city in all its brightness and clichés. My goal was to create a cacophony of color analogous with the experience of being a New Yorker.

• Materials

• Evidence 01, 2015: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, oil and collage on canvas (framed)

• 23.5 x 33 inches (59.69 x 83.82 cm)

Blind, 2017

$2,100.00

How often does the light shine down upon us, yet we are blind to its brilliance? Blind Sailor depicts the arm of the Universe bringing the figure up out of misery. The primary figure writhes in pain, and in that pain he closes his eyes and is ignorant to the glory of opportunity. The painting is heavily textured to bring a three-dimensional quality to the action.

• Materials

• Blind, 2017: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, charcoal, and conte sticks on canvas

• 20 x 40 inches (50.8 x 101.6 cm)

Element, 2014

Sold!

Element is the essence of my desire to depict matter and energy. Through a complex practice of layering heavy gesso and mixing oils with acrylics I aim to mimic the alchemy of nature.

• Materials

• Element, 2015: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic over a digital c-print giclée canvas (framed)

• 21 x 35 inches (53.64 x 88.9 cm)

Emerge, 2017

$450.00

What is more delightful than watching your garden as tiny buds bloom into flowers? The color composition of this painting describes the experience of light bouncing off petals that emerge out of a dark forest floor.

• Materials

• Emerge, 2016: Joan Raspo
• acrylic and oil on canvas
• 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.08 cm)

Untangled, 2016

$450.00

While visiting the rain forest in Costa Rico I was stunned to see the tangle of flora and fauna popping out when the sun would seep into the deep jungle. When the timing was just right, light would bounce off blooms and burst into luscious color. This painting reveals my delight in exploring new terrain and untangling the experience of color, smell and sounds of the forest.

• Materials

• Untangled, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic and oil on canvas (temporary frame, canvas size below)

• 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.08 cm)

City See, 2017

$750.00

Having lived in New York City for seventeen years (1996-2013, I often miss the rich textures of the city. “City Sea” captures the receding memory of having been once been part of the complex New York experience.

• Materials

• Earth, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, oil and collage on canvas (temporary frame, canvas size below)

• 18 x 24 inches (45.72 x 60.96 cm)

Queen, 2016

$2,500.00

Queen is the first of a series of paintings depicting Sirens. I painted on glass to create a formal study of portraiture. In this case, typical portraiture is turned around. The Queen Siren is looking away from the viewer into the past and future.

• Materials

• Queen, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic and oil on glass (framed with museum quality glass)

• 23 x 23 inches (58.42 x 58.42 cm)

Sirens & Sailors, 2016

$2,500.00

Homer wrote “The Ulysses” as a poetic journey Ulysses takes to fight the Spartan army. On the treacherous voyage home, they encountered Sirens—mythological creates whose sole goal was to capture Sailors with their beautiful yet terrifying songs. In this painting, The Siren has captured a multitude of Sailors and turned them into fish. The vigor of this painting creates an urgency of action

• Materials

• Sirens & Sailors, 2016: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic, collage over a digital c-print giclée canvas (framed)

• 21 x 35 inches (53.64 x 88.9 cm)

Siren Dreams, 2016

$1,900.00

Siren Dreams is the third in a four part series that feature Sirens as protagonists. In this painting, the Sirens both sleep and muse upon their conquests. One Siren stares down upon the Siren on the right creating a future fissure between the two Sirens at rest. Below the Sirens a Sailor looks up after being destroyed by their melodic songs.

• Materials

• Earth, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic and oil on plexiglass (set on a circular black plexigass border)

• 29.25 x 29.5 inches (74.3 x 74.93 cm

Siren Sleeps, 2016

$1,750.00

The unconscious world of dreams is mysterious. “Siren Sleeps” steps into the fourth dimension of consciousness to show the viewer the chaotic swirls and mist that comprise our nocturnal journeys. This Siren is at rest, but the message is visualized in the top part of the painting. When standing back and viewing, there is an abstraction above showing us that even in sleep our inner eye is open.

• Materials

• Siren Sleeps, 2016: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic, craft paper on canvas

• 30 x 30 inches (72.2 x 72.2 cm)

Pelicans, 2016

$1,800.00

This highly textured painting went through much iteration. Originally, I was playing with mixing oil and acrylics to get an effect that was as cracked as the bark on a tree. I consider this final painting as a study in the use of painting materials. This is one of the first paintings where I use an airbrush technique to create geometric shapes. Oddly enough, as I measured out the space for rectilinear shapes I realized I had created flock of Pelicans.

• Materials

• Pelicans, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, stones, sea shells and airbrush on canvas

• 23 x 47 inches (58.42 x 101.6 cm)

Division of Elements, 2017

Why not other elements besides fire, air, earth and water? Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen are obvious, but what about gold, silver and copper? This piece takes slices of each element mentioned and separates them with a crisp glossy strip of black plexiglass. My intention is to give the viewer a moment to think about gravity. The force of gravity holds all elements together—even though it’s a relatively weak force. A force we don’t understand. I tried to corral the elements into a neat little package. Look very close and you will see the hand of the
artist.

• Materials

• Division of Elements, 2017

• air brush and black plexiglass strips on canvas

• 23 x 47 inches (58.42 x 101.6 cm)

Evidence 02, 2014

$2,100.00

911 was unforgettable. I remember the morning of September 11^th 2001. Ordinary day. Sunny. Early Fall. While walking to my studio two planes hit the twin towers. Serenity was gone. Chaos ensued. As I stood on 5^th Avenue—a straight view to the Twin Towers, I took a photo of the buildings as they collapsed. A collective gasp defined the moment. This mixed media painting uses the photo I took as the towers fell and uses shards of mirror to symbolize the destruction of a formerly indestructible icon. The text is neutral. It tells the story from the perspective of the planes that hit, neither political nor editorial. Simply, the truth of my experience.

• Materials

• Evidence 02, 2014: Joan Raspo

• mixed media collage and photographs (framed with museum quality glass)

• 17.5 x 22.5 inches (44.45 x 57.15 cm)

Evidence 05, 2014

$1,700.00

In the fall of 2014 I was in Florence. It changed my life. As anyone who’s been to Italy knows, art envelops you and you can choose to dive in or just look. I dove in. This collage embodies what I’ve become. Choosing to risk and make art. Avedon is co-opted in this piece so I could illustrate how being different from the norm is the ultimate freedom.

• Materials

• Evidence 05, 2014: Joan Raspo

• mixed media collage on craft paper (framed with museum quality glass)

• 18 x 19.5 inches (45.72 x 49.53 cm)

Evidence 03, 2014

$2,100.00

This is the first of three collage paintings I created from sketchbooks of my life in New York City. The layers of collage overlay elements that weren’t working, but they are there if anyone wants to indulge in an archaeological dig;). The first and densest excavates from my drawings, poems and collage experiments to define, if possible, the moments that led me to NYC and what happened as I landed on Avenue A in 1996. In each piece of this three part series, I’ve added mirrors intended to capture the past and the now.

• Materials

• Evidence 03, 2014: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, oil, collage and a plexiglass mirror on canvas

• 24 x 30 inches (60.96 x 72.2 cm)

Evidence 06, 2014

$1,500.00

This is the second mixed media piece in my series of four pieces that visually describe my youthful years in the East Village. What’s different about this piece is I jump from 1999 to 2014 in a non-sequential composition. While I was making this piece Paris was the subject of a terror attack. I took my photos of Paris and intertwined them with places. Along with bits of text show my process in making art. Music has always been the chorus of my experience so I added two CD’s (that alone gives the viewer a sense of time). Like the first piece I embedded a mirror into the imagery to place the viewer in the now as you look behind to the past.

• Materials

• Evidence 06, 2014: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, oil, collage and a plexiglass mirror on canvas

• 24 x 30 inches (60.96 x 72.2 cm)

Evidence 04, 2014

$500.00

The third piece of my collages of NYC is more playful. Truth told I had ravaged all my sketchbooks and needed to create imagery from memory. The smallest of the trio is chock full of honesty—about my sexuality, obsession with pop culture and photos taken when I lived in San Francisco—where I lay bare my deepest secrets and darkest shame. Let go of the macabre, I say! This is fun stuff.

• Materials

• Evidence 04, 2014: Joan Raspo

• acrylic, oil, collage and a plexiglass mirror on canvas

• 16 x 20 inches (40.64 x 50.8 cm)

Evidence 07, 2004

$500.00

In 2004 I was inspired to start making collages as opposed to simply collaging in my sketchbooks. Evidence 7 reflects the walks I’d take in the lower east side of Manhattan where the “wheatpaste” wars were in full swing. I saw this as a treasure trove of new and old events.

• Materials

• Evidence 07, 2004: Joan Raspo

• mixed media collage on canvas

• 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.36 cm)

Evidence 08, 2014

$500.00

“Kilroy was here” is the one of first examples of what we now identify as street art. Popular during WWII, I used the phrase as inspiration for a piece that exemplifies the splash of chaos as WWII enveloped Europe. Often I embed a fortune cookie aphorism in collages as both a message to the viewer and a hopeful thought for me.

• Materials

• Evidence 08, 2014: Joan Raspo

• mixed media collage on canvas

• 11 x 14 inches (27.94 x 35.36 cm)

Time Travelers, 2016

$1,700.00

I began this painting by using a recycled photo of a son and his mother—I wanted to link the past to the now and onto the future. My intention is to depict remnants a sign painter might have in her shop in the early 1900’s. Adding rough text requires the viewer to “stop” & look at this unknown and somber family. To give it depth and bring the piece back to the future, I painted geometric elements that suggest Euclidian depth and a teeny bit of illusion.

• Materials

• Time Travelers, 2016: Joan Raspo
• oil, acrylic, and spray paint on canvas

• 24 x 48 inches (60.96 x 121.92 cm)

Mimetic 01, 2015

Sold!

Mimetics is a form of imitation, but with a twist. To make this painting, I used photoshop to create the initial swaths of color and had it printed as a glicée print. When the piece arrived printed onto to canvas, I painted over it. Creating a similar but very different image.

• Materials

• Mimetic 01, 2015: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic over a digital c-print giclée canvas (framed)

• 17 x 17 inches (43.18 x 43.18 cm)

Mimetic 02, 2015

Sold!

Mimetics is a form of imitation, but with a twist. To make this painting, I used photoshop to create the initial swaths of color and had it printed as a glicée print. When the piece arrived printed onto to canvas, I painted over it. Creating a similar but very different image.

• Materials

• Mimetic 02, 2015: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic, collaged notes, a cracked photo filter over a digital c-print giclée canvas (framed)

• 17 x 17 inches (43.18 x 43.18 cm)

USA@text.me, 2016

$250.00

Think about it. Is there ever a time where you do not see people of all ages gazing into their smart phones. We are connected to each other via social media. In this piece, I bombarded the canvas with highly textured mass to make a statement that what may seem ethereal—connecting to others through smart phones—is a highly complex series of electrical pulses that instantaneously seem to connect me to you.

• Materials

• USA@text.me, 2016: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic, tactile text, brass tacks, wire on canvas

• 12 x 13 inches (30.48 x 33.02 cm)

Democracy?, 2016

$1,700.00

I painted this the day Donald Trump became president. My circle of friends were in an uproar. Using blues and reds I created a divide that seemed apt. According to Einstein, the color red is considered the past while blue is what light looks like in the future. The massive hand is holding onto a curved red line denoting the past while at its apex between thumb and forefinger I’ve added a tiny dot of yellow. According to Einstein’s general rule of relativity, yellow is the small space of the present. Past and future are red and blue.

• Materials

• Democracy?, 2016: Joan Raspo

• oil, acrylic, spray paint, charcoal pencil on canvas

• 30 x 30 inches (76.2 x 76.2 cm)

Process 01, 2016

$250.00

I was frustrated with three paintings in my Mimetic series. Nothing was working, so out of impatience I washed over the landscape. While it was drying, I set a paint tray on the canvas. Voilà! I decided to document my painting process. This is the first of a three canvas series.

• Materials

• Process 01, 2016: Joan Raspo
• acrylic and physical paint tray on canvas

• 11.5 x 16 inches (29.21 x 40.64 cm)

Process 02, 2016

$250.00

This is the second of the process series of paintings. I used the paint tray from the first painting, Process 01 and used it to add texture and highlight the moment in painting where the work is messy and unfinished—hence the paintbrush that lies in the paint tray where I used it to continue experimenting with texture.

• Materials

• Process 02, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic and physical paint tray and broken brush on canvas

• 11.5 x 16 inches (29.21 x 40.64 cm)

Process 03, 2016

$250.00

This is the final painting in my process series. Notice the colors and composition are more balanced? Free play and the artistic impulse merged and I finished this by taking the actual paintbrush and affixing it to the canvas. The paint tray contains a broken brush, thus symbolizing the finality of this series.

• Materials

• Process 03, 2016: Joan Raspo

• acrylic and physical paint tray and broken brush on canvas

• 11.5 x 16 inches (29.21 x 40.64 cm)