Hawaii 34, 2017

Working in charcoal, watercolor, and oil paint, Joey Wolf (b. 1987, Newport Beach, CA) creates meticulous renderings of candid social scenes, often depicting his own inner circle of friends and acquaintances. The imagery in Wolf’s paintings are labored and rich, with large layered and textured surfaces that are constructed with sculptural physicality. Acting as classically rendered glimpses of contemporary life, Wolf elevates these visual instances to a grand painterly scale – juxtaposing historical European painting techniques with twenty-first century tableaus. Expansive, virtuosically produced, and revealingly narrative, Wolf’s paintings vitally fuse flawless skill with content-rich, narrative imagery.