From Architectural Digest |
REVIEWS
Two Coats of Paint
Blast Radius
October 24, 2010
Joy Garnett’s forceful new paintings capture the evanescent bursts of violence recorded by photojournalists […] around the world while also acknowledging the comfort of distance that softens the apprehension of a far-off war by an artist in her studio […]. Seeking to transform her secondary experience of the depicted events into something more authentic, Garnett culls photographs of military explosions from online sources, reconstituting the harrowing, split-second images using traditional oil paint and canvas. Painting fast and loose, she renounces exactitude to embrace clunky, restless brushwork that fuses painterly glee with exasperated rage, setting the explosions adrift from both their geographical and their political contexts.
Reinventing the news images as luscious paintings rich in art historical referents, Garnett’s work, which she calls “apocalyptic sublime,” might come off as glib and exploitative to some. […] A painter can’t make real time stand still the way a great news photographer can. But Garnett’s paintings force viewers to contemplate how ugly and destructive its procession can be, and proclaim that physical remove is no excuse for ignoring that reality.
JustLuxe | LifeStyle/Arts & Culture
Joy Garnett’s Momentary Explosions are Blowing Up the Art World
By Carly Zinderman May. 7th, 2012
New York artist Joy Garnett has introduced some interesting theories into the artworks that have made her popular, by reinventing photos and transforming them into explosive paintings. Although she uses paint and canvas like a traditional artist, her works are created from photographic images of explosions she sources from the Internet.
In her artist’s statement on her website, Garnett explains, “My paintings are associated with the ‘apocalyptic sublime,’ a metaphysical condition of astonishment and awe. Culling my source images from the Internet while referencing painterly tropes that include Abstraction, Op Art and the Luminist landscapes of the 19th century, my work continues to develop its own pictorial engagement with the vertiginous information explosion that defines our 21st century Technological Sublime Age.”
Using images of destruction and explosions, Garnett translates the images onto canvas for bright bold effects. For Boom and Bust, a solo show of six large paintings at the Winkleman Gallery, Garnett used military explosions set against dark night skies as her inspiration. Without physical groundings like horizon lines or objects on the ground, each image gives the viewer no concept of size or scale, the explosions are somehow even more intense. […] She was most recently part of a group exhibition, The Tool at Hand, at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
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HARPER’S
Paintings from Boom & Bust series (Roil; Sploosh; Rose): January 2011 issue of Harper’s: 
2010 solo exhibition, Winkleman Gallery, NY:
Joy Garnett | studio 
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