Bio
I am what you would call a “non-traditional” artist.
For more than a decade I worked at the highest levels of Democratic politics in New Jersey. I am also an attorney. In the past I worked as communications director and counsel to U.S. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr., chief of staff for Bayonne Mayor/Assemblyman/Senator Joseph Doria, Jr., and Appointments Counsel to Governor Richard J. Codey.
I served as state director for U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, running all of his operations here at home, and recently started my own consulting business. Working in politics is a not a 9 to 5 pastime. We work long hours and on many weekends as well. Despite this, I try to make art during every other waking moment.
I cannot pretend to have an impressive biography detailing years of gallery shows. I do not have an MFA. Heretofore, I have not been part of the “Art World” Nevertheless, after much belly button gazing and eons of self-pity about why no one had “discovered” my works, I decided in early 2007 that I would get off my ass and do something about it. The fruits of my labor have been fairly plentiful in a short amount of time.I want to Read More! Read Less!
Artist Statement(s)
As a college student, I worked one summer for a social service agency South of the Border in Tijuana, an expansive metropolis of ramshackle neighborhoods. I spent a good amount of time with a community of Mixteco Indians who had migrated from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and were living in a dusty, sprawling hillside colonia with jerry-rigged electricity and roosters bobbing across rutted dirt streets.
Kids sporting grubby Nike and Mutant Ninja Turtle T-shirts played an improvised version of the Great American Pastime with a broom handle and a ball fashioned from rags and duct tape. But the most striking thing was that you could not walk 20 feet without seeing a placard for 7-Up or Coca-Cola.
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Go to Kalamazoo or Katmandu, Poughkeepsie or Paris, Seattle or S“o Paulo, and you will see that ubiquitous pack of Marlboros or Colonel Sanders’ smiling mug.
If the adage “you are what you eat” is true, then we humans are pretty much clones of each other. We all skarf down the same nacho cheez trans fat-laden monstrosities deep fried in partially hydrogenated palm kernel and/or cottonseed oils. The like can be said for what we drink, what we drive, what we wear, and what we watch. My work reflects our universal consumerist ethos by capturing the icons and emblems common amongst diverse human civilizations and underscores my passion for politics and popular culture. I utilize paint, text in various languages, newspapers, maps, metal leaf, product packaging and numerous other disposable items to create layered images depicting America’s strong tradition of unbridled consumption and its wobbly relationship with the remainder of the planet. Although my art echoes that of Andy Warhol, Edward Ruscha, Richard Hamilton and Allan D’Arcagelo, it takes its cue more from Aunt Jemima than Jasper Johns; Pabst Blue Ribbon more than James Rosenquist.
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In Quentin Tarantino’s blood-soaked 1994 tour de force “Pulp Fiction” John Travolta, playing smack addicted hit man-cum-social commentator Vincent Vega, regales his partner in crime, Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), with tales of his time spent in Amsterdam. Vega, in telling his colleague what a McDonaldís Quarter Pounder with Cheese is called in the Dutch lowlands (a Royale with Cheese) aptly comments, “a lotta the same shit we got here, they got thereÖ”
Never have truer words been spoken.
I want to Read More! Read Less!
Exhibits
Jersey Royale
White Star Bar — Jersey City, NJ — Solo Show — November, 2009
7th Inning Stretch
Index Arts Center — Newark, NJ — Group Show — July, 2009
Aljira Emerge 10 Exhibition
Aljira - A Center for Contemporary Art — Newark, NJ — Group Show — July, 2009
One City: One Hundred Artist Showcase
Jajo Gallery — Newark, NJ — Group Show — March, 2009
From the Garden of Earthly Delights: An Exhibit About Food
The Arts Guild of Rahway — Rahway, NJ — Group Show — January, 2009
BCIE Annual Exhibition
Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions — New Brunswick, NJ — Group Show — December 2008
The Westinghouse Project
NJIT New Jersey School of Architecture — Newark, NJ — Group Show — October, 2008
New Prints Autumn 2008
International Print Center of New York — New York, NJ — Group Show — October, 2008
Kwality — Recent Works by Joe Waks
58 Gallery — Jersey City, NJ — Solo Show — March, 2008
Red Saw in Rahway
Rahway Arts Center (curated by Red Saw Gallery) Rahway, NJ — Group Show — February, 2008
Metro 25
City Without Walls Gallery — Newark, NJ — Group Show — November, 2007
In the Country of Last Refuge
Gallery Aferro — Newark, NJ — Group Show — October, 2007
Red Saw Invitational 2007
Red Saw Gallery — Newark, NJ — Group Show — October, 2007
Paintings by Joe Waks
Mix 27 (curated by Red Saw Gallery) — Newark, NJ — Solo Show — September, 2007
Baboom!!!
Red Saw Gallery — Newark, NJ — Group Show & Auction — July, 2007
Bodega Pop
58 Gallery — Jersey City, NJ — Group Show — June, 2007
New Jersey Law Journal Celebration of Lawyers in the Arts
NJPAC, Newark, NJ — Group Show — 2003, 2005, 2007
New Jersey Law Journal Celebration of Lawyers in the Arts
NJPAC, Newark, NJ — Jury Member — 2005, 2007
Catholic University of America Student Art Show
Washington, DC — 1998
