Joel Masewich - Abstract Painter, Ontario

Joel Masewich is an accomplished artist living in southern Ontario, his house and his family and his studio in a small village called Salem near Elora, a beautiful part of Ontario.

I see his work as intensely dramatic forms, colors, a dense variety of landscapes with the quality of powerful dreams. But they are not a dreamscape. They have a kind of hard edge near realism which for me creates the possibility of an existence just out of my reach, yet fascinates me. As if I’m gazing onto a world which is alien and yet greatly appealing. As if by changing shape I could go there. Actually it’s me doing what I hope is part of his motivation , to get me searching landscape differently for signs of drama that I had been overlooking.

Joel says of himself, “I am greatly inspired by John Muir founder of the Sierra club in 1800‘s who talks about finding yourself in Nature, which is what I am trying to show, to find the hidden spirituality in nature, the spirituality that grounds us there”

“By combining various mediums, stainless steel and acrylic paint, I try to capture the feeling and create a bridge to the expressive quality of the moment, the multiple ways of seeing a landscape, the hidden compositions of colour and texture and the hidden energy we all sense in the land – abstracting a cascading stream into gestures of colour and light.”

Conversations with Joel and slideshows:

Introduction, finding oneself in nature
How Started
Media, Theme
Evolving
Marketing

His website a great place to browse, to visit his gallery
https://www.joelmasewich.com/

Some of Joel's paintings:

Joel Masewich

From his website:

Joel Masewich is a professional visual artist, working full-time for the past 18 years. He is an abstract painter, working with acrylic on paper or canvas. His multi-layered, imaginary works represent his emotional response to landscapes, and sometimes to events or ideas. Many of his paintings are strongly horizontal and contain visual references to water or light. His vivid colours are sharply contrasting, as if lit by direct sunlight. Art collectors are drawn to the immediate, fresh quality of his work which crosses the boundary between landscape and abstract art.
His technique is to layer the paints, then intermix them with palette knives and brushes, leaving a sharp and lively interplay of colour. In a recent exhibition, Passage to Salem, Joel began to include collage elements in his work. This began with paper originals, and now involves stainless steel shapes, which are laser cut and applied to the canvas. This technique is evolving to include glass and paper elements as well.
Appropriately, Joel Masewich lives in a rural area, in the hamlet of Salem, which sits on the outskirts of the village of Elora in southwestern Ontario. His home and studio are housed in a renovated stone stable. He is active in the local arts community, but also travels widely to show his work in galleries and exhibitions. He is married, with three children, and is an active, competitive squash player.

Filed under Artist Bios - Canvassing the Artists, Featured.