Joseph Peragine
Low Anchored Cloud / Spring Hoax
July 29 – December 21, 2024
Opening reception with the artist: August 20, 5:00 p.m.
On view Monday-Friday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, and during all public events and performances. (The Performing Arts Center is closed for all University holidays.)
ABOUT THE WORKS
Known for infusing dark humor into diverse subject matter, Joseph Peragine explores the themes of life and death in his latest paintings through two distinct bodies of work.
The three large works on view come from a series titled “Low Anchored Cloud.” This title is derived from the eponymous poem by Henry David Thoreau, which evokes a misty landscape—a “Dew-cloth, dream-drapery”—a transcendental place where animals are hidden in boggy labyrinths and among banks of flowers and dreamy abstract landscapes. Peragine’s squiggly brushwork and electric colors highlight the unreality of these realms. The ghostly animal inhabitants are often rendered in soft, lavish textures like beings sculpted from living cloud.
Stylistically they are at odds with their flat surroundings, as if they no longer fully belong to their world. The animals in these works feel as if they are holding their breath, motionless and unblinking.
The installation of smaller paintings is from “Spring Hoax,” a vibrant visceral body of work featuring skulls enmeshed in jewel toned flowers and playfully rendered insects. Conceived during the pandemic, these sensuous paintings draw from a range of influences, blending elements of Vanitas and Day of the Dead imagery. Vanitas paintings, a hallmark of the European Renaissance, served as stark reminders of life’s impermanence and the fleeting nature of material wealth. Similarly, references to Day of the Dead imagery infuse the work with
a sense of celebration and remembrance, emphasizing the connection between life and death. The vivid colors and playful depictions of insects and flowers in the paintings capture the joyful spirit of this tradition, where death is embraced as a natural part of the human experience.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Joseph Peragine’s work has been presented in galleries, contemporary art spaces, and museums throughout the country and internationally. The scope of Peragine’s multi-disciplinary practice encompasses public art projects and commissions, including exhibitions at Art in General in New York City, Islip Museum of Art, West Islip, NY, Sunken Garden Park, Atlanta, and an installation for the Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, Atlanta, for which he was also awarded an Atlanta Urban Design Commission Award of Excellence for Public Art, as well as being noted one of the best public art projects in 2001 in Art in America. In 2001 Peragine was invited to exhibit his work and participate in an international symposium on art and science in Beijing, China, hosted by Tsing Hua University and the National Museum of Fine Art of China. Peragine’s animations have been exhibited at the Palm Beach ICA, Florida, the Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN, MOCA GA, Atlanta, GA, DiverseWorks, Houston, TX and the Arizona State University Art Museum Short Film and Video Festival, among others. His paintings, drawings and sculpture have been exhibited in galleries including Solomon Projects, Atlanta, Atlelie397, Sao Paulo, Brazil, David J. Spencer Museum at the CDC, Atlanta, Agnes Scott College, Dalton Gallery, Decutur, GA, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL, the UA Museum of Art, and Kress Gallery, Tucson, AZ, and the Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA.
Peragine was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1961. He completed his undergraduate work in fine art at the University of Georgia, Athens, and received his MFA in painting from Georgia State University, Atlanta. Joseph Peragine is the Director of the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia.