Category Archives: Process

University of Arizona Museum of Art Lecture (updated)

Lecture 01

UAMA Lecture Joe Forkan 01

My exhibition of the Lebowski Cycle at the University of Arizona Museum of Art ended recently. I got to wrap it up the week before by giving a talk about the work for a nice crowd at the museum. Great to have the work up in Tucson and to see so many old friends at the talk, including my favorite professor from my undergraduate days, Classics professor Dr. David Soren, whose classes I took at UA back in 1987 and 1988! A real treat to catch up with this brilliant man after all that time. (I’m showing my age, because it didn’t occur to me to take a selfie with him…)

lecture 02

UAMA Lecture Joe Forkan 02

The lecture was fun for me, (what’s not to like about talking about painting, and a big body of work I spent 5 years making)? It was much easier, and a lot more effective, to talk about the paintings when they were actually in the room. Talking about paintings from slides somehow does not have the same effect.

Tucson Sky

Tucson Sky

In my lecture, I was going to explain how growing up in Tucson was responsible for my love of color as a painter. I think the sunsets that whole week explained it a lot better.

Raft of the Medusa - installation shot

UAMA Raft of the Medusa – installation shot

The installation shots really help to give a sense of the scale of these paintings. So much of what I was after here was the impact that the old master narrative paintings have because of their size, their physical presence, which never translates in photos or on the internet.

Exhibition - installation shot

UAMA Lebowski Cycle Exhibition – installation shot

It was great to have the work up at the University of Arizona, my alma mater, in my hometown. That had a nice symmetry. Thanks to everyone at the Museum, and to everyone who came out for the lecture. Thanks to Eric Stoner for the installation & lecture photos. 

Lebowski Talk flyer

On View – Q Art Salon, Santa Ana, CA

Dark Skull 1000

Dark Skull • Joe Forkan 2015 Oil on Linen 20″ x 20″

Last year I began started teaching a drawing class on Heads and Hands at CSU Fullerton. I ordered a couple of skulls for the class, and had also been experimenting with some new paints (trying some different lead whites from several different makers – needing to find US sources now that the EU has gotten so skittish about lead white). So when the skulls arrived, I jumped into a couple paintings from them. I set up the first one in a very dark corner of my studio, and the second I placed near a north facing window, mostly just looking at color and form.

The paintings are largely about color, paint, and close looking.

These are 2 of the 3 paintings included in Fleshed Out, a group show at Q Art Salon, in Santa Ana, CA, on view from Dec. 5 – Jan. 1, 2016.

Skull-01-detail-1000 rev

Detail • Dark Skull • Joe Forkan 2015 Oil on Linen 20″ x 20″

Forkan_skull_02-10001 rev

Yellow Skull • Joe Forkan 2015 Oil on Linen 20″ x 20″

Relics – Some Early Work

Victory Dance • Joe Forkan 1999 • 48 x 24

Victory Dance • Joe Forkan 1999 • 48 x 24

I recently participated in the Facebook Art challenge (artists on Facebook posting 3 images each day for 5 days). I put up some work I hadn’t posted before, and decided to post it to the blog as well. Here are some early pieces from the late 90’s. These are from a series that I did thinking about the mutability of memory. I painted these using old, vernacular photos – mostly thrift stores finds, as a starting point, and also used a few photos from some very old family photo albums.

The Bridge • Joe Forkan 1998 48 x 60

The Bridge • Joe Forkan 1998 48 x 60

These paintings were initially blocked in with spray paint on wood panels with about a dozen coats of gesso on them. The images were then worked with a power sander, sanding blocks, clay tools, sculpture chisels, thick oil glazes and impasto.

The Dance • Joe Forkan 1997 24 x 32

The Dance • Joe Forkan 1997 24 x 32

The process got repeated until the surfaces were pretty tortured. Most of them were then screwed into massive, welded, rusted angle iron frames. The big ones must’ve weighed more than 60 lbs. Really stress tested the gallery walls…

Relics of Misremembrance I • Joe Forkan 1998 35 x 16

Relics of Misremembrance I • Joe Forkan 1998 35 x 16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Relics of Misremembrance II • Joe Forkan 1998 41 x 14

Relics of Misremembrance II • Joe Forkan 1998 41 x 14

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reunion • Joe Forkan 1997 32 x 24

Reunion • Joe Forkan 1997 32 x 24

 

Masks of Time • Joe Forkan 1998 24 x 38

Masks of Time • Joe Forkan 1998 24 x 38