Joan Benotti

Joan blends the actual with the abstract in mixed media pieces that integrate memory and story with pattern and place. “It is cut, ripped, patched, woven, sewn, painted, beaded, gilded, and frequently hinged. Often I build and attach articulated wooden shutters, or the pieces themselves are hinged so that they open and close altering the view. The painted surfaces are worked and reworked sometimes over several years as one layer wanders into the next in an ongoing dialogue between the story and the paint.”