Paintings

Coleman’s portraits create complete biographies by surrounding their subjects with interweavings of minuscule images and explanatory text. Artist and viewer embark on exploratory excavations of the subject’s life through the painting. Coleman’s jewel-box approach means that one experiences the paintings afresh at each viewing, uncovering ever more details and nuances that were previously undetected.

An admirer of Northern artists such as Bosch, Brueghel and Grunewald, Coleman employs the same attention to detail and delicate sense of scale, utilizing dual and single haired brushes in conjunction with magnifying lenses to create his refined masterpieces. Like those artists, Coleman also displays a propensity for the gruesome and grisly and often attempts to both dissect and glorify the terrible in many of his paintings, unmasking with brutal honesty the truth of human nature.

A comprehensive list of every Joe Coleman painting since 1978.
If you own a painting that we do not have here, please contact us.

Contact Andrew Edlin Gallery if you are interested in becoming a collector.

The Big Bang Theory
2000

Acrylic on panel, with explosives-related items affixed to frame, mounted on an exploded shirt, 28 x 34 in.

Love Song
1999

Acrylic on panel, with reliquaries and mounted on a bedsheet, 34 x 28 in.

Public Enemy No. 1 [John Dillinger]
1999

Acrylic on panel, 28 x 34 in.

The Book of Revelations
1999

Acrylic on panel, collaged with bloodstained miniature Bible pages, 28 x 34 in.

The Philosophy of Humbug [P. T. Barnum]
1999

Acrylic on panel mounted on clown costume, 28 x 34 in. (variable)

A Picture From Life’s Other Side [Hank Williams]
1998

Acrylic on panel, 34 x 28 in.

In the Realms of the Unreal [Henry Darger]
1998

Acrylic on panel, mounted on a child’s pajamas, 28 x 34 in.

Mermaid Creature [Whitney Ward]
1998

Watercolor on paper, with plastic monster parts on frame, 9 x 6 in.

American Venus [Jayne Mansfield]
1997

Acrylic on panel, 34 x 28 in.

A New York Pirate [Albert Hicks]
1997

Acrylic on panel, mounted on shirt worn by Elmo Patrick Sonnier during execution, 28 x 34 in.

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