Joseph Renda Jr.’s “Drawn In”
Paper is the subject and the medium of Joseph Renda Jr.’s latest Vertical Gallery release.
“Drawn In,” a limited-edition print on sale now via Vertical’s website, celebrates the art of juxtaposition, contrasting how our planet appears in reality with how it might look through the eyes of a child — one armed with a box of crayons and a sheet of wide-ruled paper.
“I wanted to explore how each person views things differently,” Joe says. “We all spend our lives processing what’s happening around us. Kids just have a more innocent way of looking at the world.”
Joe originally created “Drawn In” as part of a collection of paper-themed paintings exhibited at February’s Affordable Art Fair Brussels. Whether shredded, folded, cut or crumpled, each sheet of paper depicted in the series boasts the Chicago-based pop surrealist’s signature fidelity to photo-realistic detail and depth.
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“I like painting paper. It's fun,” Joe says. “It’s important to make stuff that's really serious and in-depth, but there's a point where you just want to do something that makes you feel good and makes you feel happy, you know?”
Joe’s painstaking rendering of a torn sheet of notebook paper occupies the left-hand side of “Drawn In,” a contrivance for revisiting another of his favorite motifs: painted crayon textures scrawled in a child’s hand, a subject he discussed with Vertical Gallery late last year. The right-hand side of “Drawn In” further demonstrates Joe’s formal precision: Each element is vividly tactile, from the ersatz Crayola to the cottonball clouds in the summertime sky.
“The whole paper series is inspired by childhood,” Joe says. “I want to take you back to the time in your life when you drew for the fun of it — not focusing on detail or technique, just going for it. I spent hours painting something that looks like it was drawn in five seconds. I'm not trying to make it look good. I'm trying to make it look exactly how a kid would do it.”
There is a third side to “Drawn In,” Joe adds: the unseen image behind the half-sheet of paper.
“The paper being on the surface blocks the landscape behind it. You don't know what that half of the landscape looks like, because there is a piece of paper blocking your view, and the person drawing the landscape is just kind of guessing what's behind the paper,” Joe explains. “It’s a staple surrealist technique: Masking the front so the viewer has to guess what they’re missing.”
Vertical’s new print edition of “Drawn In” is signed and numbered, and limited to just 25 copies. The print is priced at $175.