Untitled

Watercolor and pastel pencils on paper, 46/29.8 cm. 2016  From the show:  Bad is Beautiful - Joshua Griffit Joshua Griffit Feinberg Graduate School / David Lopatie Hall of Graduate Studies, Weizmann Institute of Science Joshua Griffit paints beautifully. Too beautiful to be real. Too good to be true. Griffit's sarcastic exaggeration is so elusive that we are unable to grasp what he is actually telling us. To some extent, we can say that Griffit intentionally commits an unpardonable sin of modern art and media: He overestimates his viewers and readers. Federico Fellini said that everyone knows that time means death, but death hides his timepiece. In staging his paintings, Griffit tries to ensure that everyone knows, understands and internalizes this. His way of achieving this goal – to convey this message – is by taunting us. His paintings are flooded with strong, bright colors. A vintage aircraft taking off. Gentlemen in bowlers, flirtatious ladies, cars with extreme features. This (