Harold Joiner

        


I began painting as a non-objective painter, creating what is erroneously referred to as “abstract” paintings. Drawing on my education as an architect at the height of Modernism, it seemed like a logical jumping off place to visual expression of another type. A colleague in one of my early classes called attention to the fact that all of my “abstract” paintings were in fact landscapes. The sense of a light source, the suggestion of land forms, and my color palette were subliminal references to landscape.

I made a decision to learn landscape painting in oil and commit to achieving some level of mastery at it, even if in my mind it was more like painting pictures than making art. The line between craft and fine art can be illusive and fuzzy, so I haven’t worried too much about that issue. What is most important is fulfilling what is in my heart, creating something that flows from there through the filter of my compositional mind’s eye. My inspiration is likely to change over time under the influences of colleagues, movements, and the circumstances of my life.

Recently my paintings categorize somewhere between the early “abstract” works and the more traditional landscapes of prior years. I try to capture a reductive sense of abstraction in any portrayal of the landscape. Line and shape are primary tools that offer the chance to describe the essentially horizontal nature of landscape, and color is a rendering tool that frees me from exact replication. My paintings are inventions, frequently inspired by specific places or memories, and they invite the viewer to see the world as a purely visual experience.

Harold Joiner - November 2021