What Goes Up

Joe Karlovec

October 1st – November 13th, 2021

 

Curiosities around landscape urbanism and environmental justice inform Karlovec’s work. He take photographs constantly, mostly documenting areas from the rustbelt where he grew up to Florida where he now lives. The work references both modernist architectural imagery and photo documentation of his own painting practice. The result is a series of hand-cut jacquard textiles that appear equally as painterly and sculptural as they do photographic, much like the places that inspire them.

By using methods of adaptability, the work is able to undermine the preciousness of the art object while dramatizing the entropy of its own visual abstractions. In doing so, it has potential to manifest in ways that establish endless contradictions between image and object, digital and physical, landscape and city, handmade versus machine-made, and even the philosophical shift from being to becoming.

 

Artist Bio

Joe Karlovec (b. 1986, Columbus, OH) is an artist living and working in West Palm Beach, FL. His work has been exhibited by galleries in South Korea, Italy, Canada, and is represented by galleries in Nashville & Miami. Publications featuring his work include Studio Visit Magazine, CreativPaper Magazine, Art Reveal Magazine, and the International Drawing Annual. Most recently, his work is featured in an international online exhibition curated by Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art based in Barcelona, Spain. Professionally, Karlovec has worked various roles in galleries & museums from Ohio to Florida, and designed exhibitions for projects in Iowa, Nevada, and New York. He has a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and an MFA from Kent State University. He currently works as Production Manager at Farano Fine Art in West Palm Beach, FL.