JOSEPH LA PIANA STUDIO

JOSEPH LA PIANA STUDIO

Artist Assistant

As an assistant and sole employee of Joseph La Piana, an artist based in Brooklyn NY, I was responsible for the administration, ideation, experimentation, fabrication, art handling and shipping, storage organization, cleaning and studio maintenance. During my time with Joseph I had the privilege and opportunity to work on artworks small and large in a variety of different mediums. Joseph is now globally recognized for his powerful abstract works, sculptures and site-specific installations that have a DNA based in biology and physics that seem to commentate on the climate of current events and the conditions of the human experience. The physical and visual tension expressed in his works are not unlike a metaphor for potential energy in the tensions and pressures present in the world around us, seen and unseen.

“Over the course of two decades, Joseph La Piana has established a multi-disciplinary practice as a visual artist, drawing upon a diversity of materials and techniques to investigate the forces, seen and unseen, that act upon our embodied experience of the world. Incorporating methodologies and theories drawn from science — biology and physics, in particular —mathematics, and phenomenology, La Piana’s body of work is at once process-oriented, while ultimately deconstructive in aim.”

- from website of Joseph La Piana

Refraction Offset Paintings

Sections from a larger vector image capturing a geometric volume with “refracted” offset outlines that progressively become lighter in shade and hue. Compositionally making contact with all four edges of canvas to create a tension with the boundaries of the frame. Acrylic paint on canvas.

Subfractal Cumulative Paintings

“Subfractal” sections of a larger vector image capturing moments of contrast and dynamic relationships between lines, angles, and volumes. Taped and painted on canvases 8’ x 10’. Acrylic paint on canvas.

Subfractal Tape Drawings

“Subfractal” sections of a larger vector image expressed in lines to create the illusion of layers, folding and unfolding. taped and trimmed on paper 11” x 14”. Architectural line tape on paper.

Tension Relief Drawings

An exploration of use of line and proportion to convey tension in space, presence and absence with the restriction of horizontal and vertical elements. Also the Color pencil, exacto knife on watercolor paper and craft paper.

Tension Sculpture (Park Ave. NY)

The Tension Sculpture series has made an appearance as a installation earlier in Joseph’s career when he exhibited in an abandoned warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn in 2015. Four years later in 2019 five of his Tension Sculptures lined the famous Park Ave. in New York City. This sculpture series took rigorous ideation, experimentation, consultation and planning, and ultimately resulted in a striking spectacle on one of the highest profile streets in the world.

I had the pleasure of exploring the earlier stages of this project by digitally rendering potential forms of this sculpture series in different parts of the world.