Joe Shlichta

Joe Shlichta is a classically trained artist who uses oil paint to explore the relationship between color and spatial illusion. Growing up in Los Angeles and attending Otis College of Art and Design, Joe was eventually influenced by The Hudson River School and other early American landscape painters such as Albert Bierstadt. As a young man, he became fascinated by the history of European immigrant painters who found themselves in early America and inevitably became transfixed by the vision of wide open, infinite space. Later, as a set painter for a theater company, Joe developed an interest in how the illusion of perspective can be destroyed when a single color is out of key. He uses his classical training in the traditional methods of painting to create the illusion of space, then departs from these methods, creating a tension and imbalance that traverses the boundaries of realism and abstraction. According to Shlicta, “The mind wishes to categorize and define a space and place itself into the landscape. In this undefined space of my painting, the human presence is uncertain. It is my intention to avoid the viewer’s unintentional process of categorization and create a new visual experience; in a way, my paintings are a search for a landscape I have never known.”

Joe Shlicta studied at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA, and holds a BFA from  Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA. He has shown in numerous galleries and arts organizations, including Fetherston Gallery, Seattle WA, Prairie Underground, Seattle WA, Ehrlich Gallery, Los Angeles CA, Out of Sight, Seattle WA, The Goethe Institute, Seattle WA. His work is in public art collections, including Swedish Hospital Public Collection, Seattle, WA, Klaiber Personal Service GmbH; Bremen, Germany, and in private collections throughout the world. Shichta’s work has been reviewed in publications including Seattle Times, CityArts Magazine, The Stranger, and Open Studios Press.