Artist Bio

Joseph Stabilito was born in 1955. He attended the Tyler College of Art in Philadelphia, and by 1982 had his first solo show at the Sande Webster Gallery there. His early work followed the canon of the Abstract Illusionisim movement, as popularized by James Havard. A showcase of Stabilito’s paintings in the windows of Bonwit Teller brought his first public recognition. That was followed by a display of boldly colored canvases for the windows of Bloomingdales, which garnered the attention of prominent New York designers, such as Juan Montoya. By 1983, Stabilito was encouraged to move to the East Village, joining a red hot art scene. With the constant exposure to new artists, Stabilito began searching for a truer expression of himself. He experimented with various styles, connecting his love of abstraction, color, and surrealism into the dominant components of an idiosyncratic style that he could call his own. To that end, Stabilito has been painting for over 40 years, and been exhibited in shows and galleries around the globe. His blend of florescent color, inventive shape-making, and doodles are instantly recognizable. Joseph Stabilito currently lives in New York and Upstate NY.    

‍ Artist Statement

I’m influenced by everything I see in my world. I’m seduced by color. I dwell in the space between organic and abstraction. I rarely begin with a fully resolved image, allowing me to push into uncharted territory. Every mark creates a new problem, leading me to correct, redraw, and build over what came before. It’s the process of making that excites me. Blobs, grids, and networks recur alongside drips, painterly marks, and dense layers to create tension between playfulness and unease. Contextually, I’m playing with surrealism, but narratively I’m pulling from biology, anatomy, graffiti, and more. I create personal worlds that are sometimes unsettling places, where things appear to be growing, colliding, or becoming something else.

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