Artwork
- The Buddy System
- The Sinful Child
- The Cornered Fox
- The Environment
- Unrelenting Doggedness
- The Harvest and the Hoard
- Pigheaded: Where There is No Sense There is No Feeling
- The Fishmonger and the Bountiful Spoil
- An Acute Nose for a Fowl Business
- Pride in Ownership
- The Finality of Knowing One’s Fate
- The Egg Thief
Statement
As a painter I draw immense inspiration from traditional paintings of the Baroque and Rococo periods. I am not only challenged by the adept craftsmanship involved in producing these masterworks, I am also moved by the richness of their imagery. Whether it be scenes of Bourgeoisie elite enveloped in an idyll fog of decadence and delusion or epic panoramas of savage hunting expeditions seething with irrepressible undercurrents of violence and nihilism - I somehow find representations of that era eerily relevant to the current state of civilization. For these reasons, I have gravitated toward the techniques and aesthetics of traditional painting, while maintaining a contemporary predilection to use the medium to shock the viewer into raw recognition of the uglier and more sinister aspects of human nature.
In my current body of work, including The Age of Swine and The Brutish Origins of a Tumored Enlightenment, I take a montage approach, recreating the skeletons of classical scenes found in Flemish works of the Golden Age and French genre paintings and fleshing them out with disturbing images that have leached through the phantasmagorical filter of my imagination. My aim is to create an atemporal, dystopian reality in which all the dark, underlying currents of human nature have fully manifested, like the inevitable blossoming of a particularly virulent strain of cancer. This is a world melded on the outposts of the unconscious, and composed of grossly distorted historical elements stretching from the 17th century and into a nightmare post-industrial future of cybernetics and genetic engineering gone disastrously wrong. Its principle inhabitants are godless hybrid pig-men, who, frankly put, represent the rapacious and paranoid desire to secure and maintain outlandish consumption patterns by any means necessary, whether by the destruction of their environment or of their own race.
Yet these works cannot be viewed as a straightforward critique on gluttonous consumption and vanity, for my paintings, in their frilly lavishness of palette and effusiveness of image, in themselves embody these tendencies. On an essential level these are the eye-catching creations of a brute romantic, designed to satiate the aesthetic cravings of the viewer. Having acknowledged that, I can assert that the dynamic tension holding these works together is the product of the reflexive unraveling and representation of the contradictions and hypocrisies I find within myself.
Ultimately, my goal as an artist is to produce paintings that celebrate the timeless craft of painting and challenge perceptions about what constitutes ‘contemporary’ and ‘traditional’ art. I am exploring methods of picture making that have been deemed irrelevant and old fashioned because I believe they have intrinsic artistic value, and the potential to ground twenty-first century painting in craft and thematic substance after a century of drifting in a vague, conceptual ether.
Curriculum Vitae
Solo Exhibitions
- 2007
- The Age of The Swine - Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto
- 2006
- Beckerwood - Mind Control Gallery, Toronto
- Joe Becker - Mind Control Gallery, Toronto
Group Exhibitons
- 2008
- Carte Blanche, Vol. 2: Painting - Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art (MoCCA), Toronto
- Scope New York - Christopher Cutts Gallery
- Arco Madrid - Christopher Cutts Gallery
- 2007
- Summer Splash - Christopher Cutts Gallery, Toronto
- Scope New York - Christopher Cutts Gallery
- DC Duesseldorf Contemporary - Christopher Cutts Gallery
- 2006
- Scope Miami - Christopher Cutts Gallery
- Blaze Days - Christopher Cutts Gallery
- Basic Instinct - Spin Gallery
- 2005
- Fantasy Island 2 - Drake Hotel, Toronto
- Return of the Real - Drake Hotel, Toronto
- Walls Before Winter - Gallery Neubacher
- 2004
- Blender 2, presented by MIX Magazine - Mind Control Gallery, Toronto
- Generic Versatility Presents… - Maple Leaf Tavern, Toronto
- 2003
- Efficiency - Mind Control Gallery, Toronto
- OCAD Digital Painting - The Cameron House, Toronto
- Joe Becker/Brian Donnelly: New Paintings - Gallery 61, Toronto
- Joe Becker/Brian Donnelly/John Little - The Beverley Tavern, Toronto
- Absolut Whodunit? Media Preview - Red Drink Boutique, Toronto
- 2002
- The Destro(yers) - Art System, Toronto
- Dance…Dance…Dance… - Art System, Toronto
- Just Wrong - OCAD Atrium Gallery, Toronto
- 3 Guys Who Paint - Gallery 401, Toronto
Collections
- USA
- Steve Shane - New York
- Absolut Collection - MoMA, New York
Publications
- 2008
- Carte Blanche, Vol. 2: Painting
- 2003
- Bite - Bite 09, February-March
- 2002
- Cheek - Fashion Television, re: Dance…Dance…Dance…
- MIX > independent art & culture magazine - Vol. 28. 1. Summer
Awards
- 2003
- Elizabeth Blackstock Tuition Scholarship
- TL Pro Imaging Prize
- 2002
- Curry's Art Store Prize
Education
- 1999-2003
- Ontario College of Art and Design
AOCAD Drawing and Painting