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The Art of Joshua Petker
Classical portraits with a krylon color palette
Joshua Pekter is another of those "messy" artists that I find myself more and more attracted to. I love his painting titled Bloody Mary, filled with electric red splashes.
Petker’s alluring style has been referred to as “romantic street painting” and “renaissance graffiti”. Subject matter often revolves around women, from ex-lovers to iconic television actors to dreamt up muses, rendered in subtle pose, though shockingly accented with vibrant colors set in dream-like environments. His work is informed by his years spent as a graffiti artist and tagger in California and Europe, as well as a love and understanding for classical composition and technique. Petker’s paintings are often executed on second hand canvases found in garage sales or thrift stores – adding an unidentified and often mysterious back-story to many of his works.
I like Joshua's approach, which mixes classical portrait painting from the likes of Gustav Klimt or Toulouse Lautrec, but with a color palette that includes Krylon day-glo favorites, rather than burnt umber or raw sienna.
Joshua Petker is one of the featured artists in the September issue of Juxtapoz, and while there is only a single page in the print version, Juxtapoz published a much longer article online.
A selection of my favorite portraits after the break.
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