Joseph Coniff

b. 1981

Joseph Coniff

b. 1981
Lives and works in Denver, CO

Joseph Coniff received an MFA from the University of Delaware, Newark and a BFA from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. His work has been included in New American Paintings, Creative Quarterly, Studio Visit Magazine, and Vogue Espana among others. Coniff has been called one of Denver’s most notable emerging artists and has received numerous awards and recognition in the Denver press. Coniff is also the co-editor of The Programme, an annual publication featuring artist and curatorial interviews. He has completed residencies and guest lectures in Wassaic, NY; Santa Fe NM; Berlin, Germany; and at Black Cube, Denver, CO. Coniff’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in Denver, Marfa, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Berlin and is in numerous public, business and private collections nationally and internationally. Recently, Coniff was included in the exhibition, Nth Dimension, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, curated by Zoe Larkins.

(Denver, CO) RULE Gallery is pleased to present Panel Situations, a solo exhibition of artworks by Joseph Coniff, at our Denver location. In this most recent series, Joseph Coniff delves further into his exploration of materials and objects to create a visual rendering of the relationship between organic and constructed forms.This new series began as small, collaged works on paper and further evolved into larger painted and image-adorned panels. Each piece consists of a solid-colored rectangular form layering and absorbing an image. Coniff pulled these images from various sources, including scanning the backgrounds of magazine ads, books, and photographs taken on daily walks. These intentionally blurred and obstructed images function as symbols for the naturally occurring world. While the colored panels encompass the human-created objects and systems we experience daily, such as buildings, roads, and sidewalks, as well as unseen phenomena like economic markets and networking technologies.Often the conversation about human intervention within the natural world centers on the impact one has on the other. We discuss the determinants of global warming and look at the ripple effects caused by each new “human-made” machine or system. On the other hand, we discuss the restorative aspects of “getting outside” and how outdoor activities reconnect us back to nature, the place from which we originated but continue to find ourselves alienated from. Instead of re-enforcing the binary oppositions between humans and nature, in this series, Coniff creates a new visual language that focuses on the relationship between these two forces as revealed through our lived experiences.The erasure of details in Coniff’s blurred and obstructed photographs and painted panels focuses the viewer not on the specific image but on the more extensive system or experience being illustrated. Coniff’s resulting compositions create visual symbols for the relationship between the natural and constructed spaces and systems we are continually immersed in and surrounded by.