Joe Votano – In the Spirit of Andrew Wyeth

August 12 – September 24, 2023

When Joe Votano thinks about Andrew Wyeth, he always comes up with magical realism as a way to describe his work. He sees with his mind more than his eye. His paintings revolved around three styles: watercolors, egg tempera, and dry brush painting. Watercolors gave him freedom, it was spontaneous; whereas tempera with its earth colors was meticulous, and needed serious thinking. Dry brush was more contemplative, it took a lot more thinking and emotional input.

In the Spirit of Andrew Wyeth, Joe Votano has created mostly painterly images reflecting his styles: dry brush was used to create the image, A Story to Tell, tempera-like colors in The Visitor, and watercolors in Window to the Sea as examples. Andrew was noted for his realistic paintings. Here, around half of the images are realistic, but in many of these cases he has put in a Wyeth-like sky in what he calls a painterly sky.

The twenty (20) images contained within this exhibit are a small segment of those he has captured over many years of tracking the Maine coast and elsewhere which he feels reflects Andrew’s emotional and spiritual being. He always remained true to himself through most of his life. He was buried a stone’s throw from the Olson House in Cushing Maine.

“Art to me is seeing. I think you have got to use your eyes as well as your emotion, and one without the other just doesn’t work. That’s my art.” – Andrew Wyeth