Joe Andoe American, 1955

Joe Andoe was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1955. In his work he strives for an utter distillation of image, ground, and color. Not surprisingly, then, his inventory of subjects remains basic: horns, wreaths, candles, flowers, cornstalks, trees, cattle, buffaloes, lambs, sheep, and, lately, horses. “I tend to economize,” explains Joe Andoe, “I want to reduce images to their blueprint.”

Mentally prepared, but without a preparatory design, he begins with a blank canvas then applies a layer of gesso. Once the gesso has dried, he uses a palette knife to apply a thin layer of oil paint, building up the layers in certain places and leaving other places with only a thin wash of color.

Andoe is bent on creating pared-down, timeless, and generic images, an attitude that extends to his use of a monochromatic, earth-colored ground. “By using earth colors, I further distill my images to next to nothing.”