Bio

Joseph Christiana is an interdisciplinary visual artist working in resin, oil, and encaustic wax. His paintings and mixed-media works have been exhibited in galleries and institutions along the East Coast, and his films have screened at independent festivals and received distribution. 

He earned a BFA in Visual Art and Design from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Christiana began his career in architectural visualization and currently serves as Creative Director for a New York–based design firm, where he leads spatial and experiential projects. 

He currently lives in Hubbardsville, New York, where he is converting a historic barn into Barnstorm Studios, soon to be an open working studio and exhibition space. 

Artist Statement

I begin these pieces with a clear intention, using a medium that resists that intention. Resin responds to heat, gravity, and time in ways that can’t be fully predicted. I set the conditions and then negotiate with the material as it accepts, resists, and responds to those conditions. Over time, the process begins to suggest form, texture, and composition. 

Sometimes figures insinuate themselves, and I coax them into emergence—like raising ghosts—with traditional brush-and-oil techniques before returning them to the field from which they emerged. 

I explore the space between control and surrender, the possibility of meaning and coherence emerging from chance and chaos.