Joyce Pensato

b. 1941 New York

Joyce Pensato who was born in Brooklyn, New York, the USA where she continues to live and work. Her paints exuberant, explosive large-scale likenesses of cartoon characters and comic-book heroes. Her seemingly frenzied technique – actually involving the deliberate accretion of successive layers of bold linear gestures, rapid spattering, and frequent erasures – results in alternately humorous and sinister imagery.

While her prima facie subject matter ranges from Batman, The Simpsons and MickeyMouse to Felix the Cat and Elmo from Sesame Street.

Her artistic progenitors include Alberto Giacometti, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston.

Joyce Pensato who was born in Brooklyn, New York, the USA where she continues to live and work. Her paints exuberant, explosive large-scale likenesses of cartoon characters and comic-book heroes. Her seemingly frenzied technique – actually involving the deliberate accretion of successive layers of bold linear gestures, rapid spattering, and frequent erasures – results in alternately humorous and sinister imagery. While her prima facie subject matter ranges from Batman, The Simpsons and MickeyMouse to Felix the Cat and Elmo from Sesame Street.

Her artistic progenitors include Alberto Giacometti, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston.

As well as excising her floating heads from the contexts of Gotham, Disneyland, Springfield or South Park, Pensato situates her figuresin troubling psychological states and indeterminate spaces. The true source of their meaning is concealed, not only by successive sweeps of paint but beneath the guileless grin of Donald Duck or the Caped Crusader’s eye-less mask. Taking much of her material from her surroundings in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York, USA – from graffitied walls to hand-scrawled shop signs – Pensato paints almost exclusively in shop-bought black and white enamel, while also employing charcoal and pastel for smaller-scale drawings. Recently Pensatohas began painting oversized murals, often taking weeks to complete, while there are also occasional leaps away from the monochrome world she generally inhabits into sporadic bursts of color, especially silver and gold.

Joyce Pensato’s Solo exhibitions include Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria (2016), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, USA (2015) and Santa Monica Museum of Art, USA (2013). Pensato’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; SFMoMA, San Francisco, USA; the Hammer Museum, USA, Los Angeles, USA; the Dallas Museum of Art; St Louis Art Museum and the FRAC des Pays de la Loire, France. She has won numerous awards including the Robert de Niro Sr. Prize (2013), the Award of Merit Medal for Painting, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2012), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award (1997) and the Guggenheim Fellowship (1996).

2020

“GIN HUANG Gallery Taichung”, Gin Huang Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan.

2018

‘Joyce Pensato: L.A. Show’, Grice Bench, Los Angeles, CA, USA

2017

‘FORGETTABOUT IT’, Lisson Gallery, London, UK
‘Make My Day’, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2016

‘The Fizz’, Grice Bench, Los Angeles, CA, USA
‘Joyce Pensato: Felix and Lincoln’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA
‘The Godmother’, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, IL, USA
‘Later is Now’, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

2015

‘FOCUS: Joyce Pensato’, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, USA
‘Later is Now’, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany
Site-specific wall project, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA
‘Castaway’, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2014

‘Painter’s Painters: Gifts from Alex Katz’, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, USA
‘Joyceland’, Lisson Gallery, London, UK

2013

‘I Killed Kenny’, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, USA
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, USA

2012

‘You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do’, Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago, IL, USA
‘Batman Returns’, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2011

Hotel, London, UK

2010

‘Ask Joey’, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France

2009

Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany

2007

‘The Eraser’, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA
‘Recent Drawings’, Schmidt Contemporary Art, Saint Louis, MO, USA

Joyce Pensato

<div class="article-cv"><div class="row"><div class="col-md-12"><ul class="article-cv-item"></ul> 2020<ul class="article-cv-item"><li><b>“GIN HUANG Gallery Taichung”, Gin Huang Gallery, Taichung, Taiwan.</b></li></ul> 2018<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘Joyce Pensato: L.A. Show’, Grice Bench, Los Angeles, CA, USA<br></li></ul> 2017<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘FORGETTABOUT IT’, Lisson Gallery, London, UK</li><li>‘Make My Day’, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA</li></ul> 2016 <ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘The Fizz’, Grice Bench, Los Angeles, CA, USA<br></li><li>‘Joyce Pensato: Felix and Lincoln’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL, USA</li><li>‘The Godmother’, Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, IL, USA</li><li>‘Later is Now’, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria</li></ul> 2015<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘FOCUS: Joyce Pensato’, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, USA</li><li>‘Later is Now’, Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany</li><li>Site-specific wall project, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA</li><li>‘Castaway’, Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA</li></ul> 2014 <ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘Painter’s Painters: Gifts from Alex Katz’, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, USA<br></li><li>‘Joyceland’, Lisson Gallery, London, UK</li></ul> 2013<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘I Killed Kenny’, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, USA</li><li>Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Saint Louis, MO, USA</li></ul> 2012<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do’, Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago, IL, USA</li><li>‘Batman Returns’, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA</li></ul> 2011 <ul class="article-cv-item"><li>Hotel, London, UK<br></li></ul> 2010 <ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘Ask Joey’, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France<br></li></ul><ul class="article-cv-item"></ul> 2009<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany<br></li></ul> 2007<ul class="article-cv-item"><li>‘The Eraser’, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, NY, USA</li><li>‘Recent Drawings’, Schmidt Contemporary Art, Saint Louis, MO, USA</li></ul><ul class="article-cv-item"></ul></div>