Joseph Pisani Existential Landscapes

Thirty years ago, at twenty-three, Pisani made an Impossible Pledge: How to Do Everything in Just One Lifetime. 73 countries later, the pledge still stands. The paintings he creates from these journeys aren't meant to be postcards of places visited, but distillations of the full friction and wonder of each experience, reflecting time, self, and impermanence…

Pisani intentionally navigates away from the easy route, collecting the friction and grit of circumstance that defines his work. Armed with little more than a backpack, a camera, and a journal, foreign lands become sensory laboratories. Refusing fixed itineraries creates space for what he calls Serendipitous Mischief: unplanned detours, chance encounters, and culture shock bliss that overloads the senses, dismantles the self, and generates the raw material his paintings are created from…

Pisani developed the genre Existential Landscapes to describe his work. The true subject is the totality of the event: the Vorfreude of planning, the physical struggle of the approach, the tension and adrenaline of the journey, and the haunting beauty that lingers long after departing. The tally marks, etchings, and wounds on the surface of each canvas are what remain…

Since his first journey in 1995, Pisani has carried a camera to every place he visits. He calls it his second sketchbook, something quick enough to catch and savor fleeting moments before they vanish. Some capture the friction or excitement of a scene, while others find subtle juxtapositions of color or circumstance he noticed while others walked by…