Collective Identities: Works on/of Paper
 The Philadelphia Inquirer.
September 12, 2008
Joan Giordano shows works on paper.
She chooses to swim outside the mainstream.
By Victoria Donohoe
For the Inquirer
Joan Giordano of New York is among "new" artists receiving considerable attention today as one of those who chose to remain outside the mainstream.
Her exhibit "Collective Identities: Works on/of Paper" Rosemont College features colorful sculptural installations from a technique Giordano perfected during a residency at the Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Although many of these 13 richly textured works exemplify for her a new type of painting with implied figurative elements called "Personages," she doesn't try to tell a story in them.
 Instead, each of the sentinel like panels -- "flags of the spirit," they been called -- has a dominant color (synthetic for permanency), which she pounds into the crinkly surface of the hanging scrolls. The single most striking paperwork, differently shaped "Flight of a Warrior," combines such varied techniques as burning, stitching, melting, cutting and welding.
Giordano’s handsomely textured abstract sculptures are the result of a complex thought and work process that constantly moves between freedom and rational control. Explicit mirroring of reality and narrative action are strictly avoided as well, in her accompanying smaller waxed-based paintings and prints. Texture is everything for Giordano, and so is respect for the humblest materials of nature.
Rosemont College’s, Lawrence Gallery, Montgomery Ave., Rosemont. To September 28. Monday through Friday, nine through eight. Free. 610-526-2967.
Mainline Times, Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
September 18, 2008.
 Artist Draws Inspiration from Japan, Greece
Mainly Art
by Marie Fowler.
"The moments of the past do not remain still," artist Giordano explains, quoting Proust. "They retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future ... a future, which has itself become the past... ."
Works on/of Paper, an installation by Giordano on view at Rosemont College's Lawrence Gallery through September 28, presents mixed media, encaustic and monotypes.
Giordano’s, Presences series, in her words, "embodies spirit no longer alive. They may have passed away, but they are still with us. In Turkey, they feel that there are spirits from past civilizations that follow us."
 Indeed, the presences are commanding, hanging from the wall on metal frames that suggest hangers. (The artist admits that since her mother was a seamstress, "things were always hanging around everywhere.")
"Art for me is about connecting," the New York artist says, "the inexplicable way things connect -- dots, lines, ideas. Ideas connect moments of my life."
Though she began as an oil painter of figures as a child, Giordano’s background is an Abstract Expressionism, and she spent a number of years teaching at the secondary and university levels, co-founding Art Lab at Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island.
Long interested in Asian art, and already working with handmade paper, Giordano spent a residency in Japan. She told a recent gathering of Rosemont Art students, paper has been made in Japan for thousands of years. "But their paper is functional," the artist observes. "They don't have a history of experimenting, but Americans experiment."
 After her sojourn in Japan, Giordano found herself absorbing elements of the Japanese aesthetic, which she terms as "getting to the essence." To achieve the rich, radiant colors, she dyes the pulp, using synthetic colorants to avoid fading. The large screens she uses to craft her paper are made from reeds, leaving a texture reminiscent of bamboo blinds. The artist pounds in more color, using encaustic (a wax medium) to achieve nuance. She burns, cuts, stitches, melts, welds metal. Giordano’s intent is to make "surfaces come forward, to rise from the back."
A Question of Time is a group of encaustics. "Time to me," the artist insists, "is the fourth dimension."
Giordano cites the early use of encaustic in Greco-Roman times to make portraits of the deceased in their caskets. Hence, her trip to Greece resulted figures that suggest Greek art from around 5000 BC.
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 AM until 8 PM and on weekends by appointment. Call 610-527-0200 or check the Web at www.rosemont.edu. Giordano’s work may also be seen at www.joangirodano.com.
 
 
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