Art Posting: Joe Average
When I first announced that I would be blogging about art, a friend of mine recommended that I check out Joe Average. I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of Joe Average before, but I did some poking around and diligence and it turns out that Sherri and I both love his style and will be adding a piece or two to our home collection.
I love the use of color in any art. For me, life should be vibrant and beautiful and I think Joe Average uses bold color to invoke emotion. Joe also uses subtle humor and contradiction in his art which make people smile.
Here are some details taken from various sources (including Wikipedia) about Joe:
Joe Average is a Canadian artist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Diagnosed HIV+ at age 27, Average made the decision to commit the rest of his life to art, and to challenge himself to live by his art.
Average frequently donates work to charitable causes, such as Vancouver’s annual Art for Life auction. His work has been used for such projects as A Loving Spoonful (a charity which provides meals to people with terminal illnesses) and the Davie Village. Average has also been selected to judge submissions for Vancouver’s AIDS memorial and anti-homophobia posters.
Average is known for his cheerful, colourful, cartoony work, including images of flowers, animals and insects, and people. He has received many awards and honours, including civic merit awards, the Caring Canadian Award (1998) and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Silver Medal for Outstanding Community Achievement (2002). Vancouver’s mayor also pronounced November 3, 2002 as “Joe Average Day.”
Another artist’s work that we have hanging in our house is Keith Haring, which is also an artist that unfortunately was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Haring passed away in 1990 but his art has lived on and is almost icononic in nature. Haring and Average share similar color palletes and overall themes. I love the boldness of their art.