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ARDENT
HEART: A Portrait of the Artist, as a Painter
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Joshua
Hogan's current body of work, "Ardent Heart",
visually describe his spiritual, moral, psychological,
and social growth as an abstract painter. Like
the James Joyce novel, A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man, Joshua's paintings explore origin,
authority, and the relationship between him and
family, artistic peers, and society. Armed with
a fascination of the physical world and the constant
struggle to determine what it is to be artistically
tempered, Joshua's paintings depict the many layers
of huge conflicts. Without fear of accidental
marks or unexpected brushstrokes, Joshua paints
to escape from both the artistic and social definition
of modernism toward something wholly "other".
This process, opposite the case of today's society
where essential details about environment, technology,
and politics are hidden beneath the scene, attempts
to mature the stigmatized concept of self in relation.
The process by which Joshua paints is a rebellion
from authority. It is the attempt to capture the
immutable intrinsic qualities of feeling. In a
stream of consciousness Joshua allows spontaneity,
irrationality, and freedom of form to manifest
a result that mimics his mood and mind. Working
within a balance of isolated raw color and a plane
of sienna depth, Joshua also uses accents of texture
and the interaction of random line in his paintings.
Oil paints, pastels, and charcoal allow him the
flexibility of change, a succession of adding
and taking away. The canvas texture is also an
important element to the painting as it is often
sanded down to give the work softness or emphasized
with black line to give the work force. Joshua's
style can be classified as "l'art informel"
when the process is purely an escape from the
traditional definition of art. Joshua's paintings
in this style emphasize the spontaneous act of
painting, where the process is more important
than the result. His style can also be described
as "lyrical abstraction." These paintings
reßect an overall Gestalt of consistent surface
tension, the hiding or removing of brushstrokes,
and the avoidance of a related composition. In
either case, Joshua's intent rests on process,
repetition and the all over sensibility that results
from his emotional and physical engagement to
the act of painting.
From the traditional definitions of what it is
to have and maintain a family; the choice between
the love of another or the love of art; the inequities
that often led to the doubt of religion and faith;
to the contempt that resides for people too boring
and comfortable to be affected by art, it remains
the pull of intangible phantoms that challenge
Joshua's ambition to be an artist. Yet, in the
process of painting he is saved, able to "meet
in the real world the unsubstantial image which
his soul so constantly beholds."
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