Joe Novak Now, 1989, Oil, Acrylic on canvas, 82x96 inches.
Joe Novak “… Novak's interests are firmly rooted in abstraction and in an exploration of color and light. Using graduated hues that seem to float on the surface, Novak shapes moody, meditative environments. Many of his large acrylics on canvas evoke Rothko's paintings, with their luminosity and softness… Most effective were the big, monochromatic canvases, so finely worked that they resembled black-and-white photographs capturing nuances of light. The expressiveness of these paintings moved the viewer, sometimes with nothing more than a faint shadow, a cosmic blast of purple, or a wispy smokelike tendril of yellow. “
Dottie Indyke, Art News, February 2005 ( reviewing October, 2004 solo exhibition at EVO Gallery, Santa Fe, NM )