Commentary
Gerrit Henry, critic for Art in America, Art News, The New York Times and others, wrote “When, rarely, I do come across someone who seems a genuinely visionary artist, I am reminded how little such an artist has to do with the easy sophistication of contemporary art. With Phil Joanou it stands to reason: a vision that is febrile, even near hallucionatory, calls for a style that is elemental enough to fear such poetic freight…we are fortunate that Joanou’s eyes have been opened so wide and that he’s seen fit to paint dream as a salient form of truth”.
Roberta Carosso, PhD
“Phil Joanou is an accomplished painter whose canvases depict deeply philosophical visual subjects peppered with tongue-in-cheek humor and superb artistic skills. Joanou’s art stops viewers in their tracks, making them pause to enjoy and contemplate each profound scenario”.
Jonathan Goodman, writer and editor for Art in America, Art on Paper wrote “….the sensual, intelligent paintings are invested with vigor and moral force”.
John Mendelsohn, artist and critic for Jewish Week, Cover Magazine and Art Net, wrote “Joanou is an artist with one eye on the coming millennium and the other on art’s rich past. He is a history painter of the dystopia that is the present…a biting satirist whose object is the ongoing human folly”.
Bill Zimmer, D-Art International wrote “His most bracing paintings teem with humanity”.
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