bodhi presents a series of 20 paintings by Santa Fe–based painter Joan Watts—half 12-square-inch panels and another half 24-square-inch canvases. Reproductions of these monochromatic studies are printed on French fold sheets, echoing the delicacy and strength of Watts' work in the book design itself.
Published by Radius Books. Foreword by Louis Grachos. Text by Lilly Wei.
According to essayist Lilly Wei, “Light, created out of increasingly subtle modulations of color and contained within an imagined space…[is] Joan Watts’ primary subject…. Although Watts’ work is reductive, part of the Modernist legacy and often considered Minimalist, she insists it is not. Premised as it is on the immaterial and transcendent, in intention, it has greater affinities to the paintings and statements of Agnes Martin, the installations of James Turrell and other artists of light and space, to Buddhist teachings and the spiritual.” This substantial new volume presents a comprehensive overview of Watts’ spare but deeply resonant paintings, made over the course of the last 60 years. Joan Watts has lived in New York City and Hawaii, and has made her home near Santa Fe, New Mexico, for the past 20 years. She is represented by Lemmons Contemporary, New York, and Charlotte Jackson Fine Art in Santa Fe.
Joan Watts