Josef Kote
(American Artist, b.1964)
From Johannes Vermeer to Claude Monet and James Turrell, for centuries artists have been obsessed with exploring the creative and transformational potential of light. Such is the case of Connecticut-based artist Josef Kote, who for decades has been capturing the seemingly endless variations of light as it reflects upon urban settings, the seaside, or his portraits’ subjects. While connected to the Impressionist tradition, the eighteen large-scale acrylic paintings featured in the artist’s new exhibition at Ocean Galleries, in New Jersey, further reflect the artist’s ongoing quest for redefining traditional painting genres and styles through a distinctive visual vocabulary populated by alternating realist and expressionist gestures.
More so, through his latest exhibition, titled Transcended, Kote tells us an open-ended story about the people and places that are significant to him. This multifaceted story is outlined with expressive textures, traces, and colors brought to life thanks to the artist’s mastery of palette knife and brush techniques, which he has perfected over the years. At the same time, the title of this exhibition reflects Kote’s conceptual approach to art-making which seamlessly blends two historically opposing styles of painting, Abstract Expressionism and Realism. “They dance instead of fight,” the artist says. In this way, the artist transcends style boundaries and reinvents them through the universal language of light, the latter of which also bears a contemplative or, one may say spiritual nature.
Fluidity, 48x60, Acrylic on Canvas
In Kote’s sixth solo show with Ocean Galleries, some works stand out as the central characters. Such is the case of paintings, like Rising Tide, Light on Light, and Fluidity, which portray the immensity of the ocean, with the seaside being one of the artist’s go-to subjects over the years. Josef’s atmospheric renderings of New Jersey’s coastline bring to mind the legacy of seminal landscape artists, such as J.M.W. Turner and later Winslow Homer that captured the experience of the Sublime in nature. However, in Kote’s case, the turbulence of the sea is infused with an ethereal light that conveys a feeling of calmness and triggers our senses. We can almost hear the waves as they crash on the shore, feel the cold water at the soles of our feet, or remember the last time we saw the sunset at the beach. Interestingly, most of these close-up scenes portray a diagonal vantage point and represent the horizon in diverse ways. In some of them, such as Rising Tide or Light on Light, the artist focuses on capturing the waves while the diffused sky takes a secondary role, and, in others, such as Fluidity, he accentuates the multi-colored sky that reflects its brightness upon the ocean.
Utmost Splendor, 48x48, Acrylic on Canvas
Next to his sea-side views, in this exhibition, two cityscapes of Philadelphia titled Utmost Splendor and Sunset in Philadelphia also attract our attention. On one hand, the artist’s portrayals of this city speak to the Impressionist tradition of cityscape painting, which also has a rich history in the US through artists like Childe Hassam and later Edward Hopper or George Bellows. Particularly, the last two painters captured many scenes of New York City, also a recurrent theme for Kote, through diverse visual strategies. While influenced by this legacy, Kote’s views of Philadelphia are constructed as city postcards deprived of the human presence as if waiting for a new story to unfold. Especially, in the work Utmost Splendor, the realistic depiction of the 19th-century bronze sculpture of General George B. McClellan, located in the city center, is the main actor. However, even if we can identify Philadelphia’s main landmarks across the artist’s canvases, the color palette of his compositions is dictated by the multicolored reflections of light. Various fluid brushstrokes of grays, blues, and ochres color the buildings, while greens and blues portray the patinas of the bronze monument. As almost a footnote, in Utmost Splendor, the artist also hints at the Americana way of life, through the inclusion of the US flag and a sign that refers to the city’s 4th of July festival. Overall, in this triangular composition, the artist evaded the human presence and focused on making us appreciate the city’s architectural beauty and historic value, especially when being infused by the ever-changing colors of sunset.
Light On Light, 48x60, Acrylic On Canvas
Interestingly, whilst thematically diverse, the artist’s cityscapes and ocean view scenes are connected by Kote’s mastery of perspective, learned in his classical art training years in Albania, and by his portrayal of dreamy cloudy skies constructed with expressionist pink, yellow, and white traces. Like many landscape artists before him, Kote strives to capture the infinity of atmospheric effects resulting from the sunset. Alongside the artist’s signature skies, other elements of his paintings, such as the ocean waves featured in the work Light on Light or the foliage and trees included in Utmost Splendor, are also outlined with this gestural palette-knife technique that makes us forget the works are made with a water-based material like acrylic.
Serenely, 30x40, Acrylic On Canvas
Furthermore, in the portrait painting of the artist’s daughter titled Serenely, also on view at Transcendent, we see a more intimate side of the artist’s multifaceted practice. Here, the subject’s face is rendered realistically and the rich textures of her white dress are portrayed with great detail. Remarkably, the profile posture of the sitter brings to mind the composition layouts of Renaissance masters. The visual accent the artist put on her daughter’s pearl earring even makes us think of Vermeer’s famous painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. However, these classical referents contrast with the more fluid traces that populate the sitter’s hair and with the completely abstract and highly textured nature of the painting’s background. These contrasts further reveal how in Kote’s skilled hand collide two styles of painting. However, while including abstract components, his practice heavily leans towards figuration, a language the artist stayed faithful to even when conceptual and abstract manifestations were in vogue.
Wondrous, 48x48, Acrylic On Canvas
Without a doubt, through the ethereal paintings featured in Transcended, on view from August 5th until September 5th, Josef Kote takes us on a compelling emotional journey through a myriad of times, memories, and places. In the artist’s words: “All I want to do is express myself, my point of view, how I see it and feel it - then it's yours to experience and takes away from it what you will.’’ Echoing Claude Monet’s words, while the artist’s point of view is colored by his life’s experiences within the US where he has lived for most of his career, the real subject behind each one of his paintings is light.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Constanza Ontiveros Valdés, an independent scholar, (Ph.D. in Art History). She has worked as a Curatorial Associate at the Contemporary Art Museum, Santa Barbara, and as Research Assistant at The Jumex Museum.
