About Joan Pechanec

Artist’s Statement

“My art expresses the world as I experience it: rich in numinous color and vibrant light, a world of mood and mystery. When painting, I enter a state of flow where time and reality recede and I inhabit the scene in my imagination.”
~ Joan Pechanec

Image of artist Joan Pechanec at her easel

Artist Joan Pechanec

Bio

Joan Pechanec has created art as long as she can remember.  “I have always lived a rich and delight-filled inner life, a world full of vibrant imagery.”

A characteristic of Joan’s art is a strong sense of place inspired by the many areas where she has lived and traveled. She earned a BA from the University of Denver and an MA from the University of Chicago before moving to San Francisco. Joan’s vivid, “amped-up” palette reflects the flamboyant and quirky culture of the late 60s and 70s in the Bay Area. Her use of intense, warm color has also been influenced by travel, particularly to Bali, Morocco, Guatemala, and a year’s sabbatical in Mexico. Recently, she and her husband, Charlie Price, a novelist, spent winters in the Gulf Coast town of Fairhope, Alabama, an old utopian community centered around the arts, where Charlie was writer-in-residence. Many of Joan’s recent paintings depict moody southern scenes in the atmospheric light of that area.

Joan’s art and her life have been strongly influenced by her psychotherapy profession. “I have been honored and enriched by the intimate stories of so many courageous people. I often experience this emotional material visually. Many of my art works express these powerful feelings and memories.”

Image of an oil painting of a riverside scene, with mossy rocks and trees with gold Autumn foliage

Beside My Studio, painting by Joan Pechanec

About Joan’s Art

 

Joan is currently painting in oils, primarily landscapes, with radiant hues and light. Most of her landscapes are derived from scenes that have moved her, usually a combination of several images with the colors altered.

Joan also works in a broad variety of media: acrylic and watercolor collages, encaustics, and assemblages. These mixed-media pieces contain complex layers of paint, ink, photos, fabrics, and symbolic objects. “I love the mysterious and intricately textured aspect of these works; their veiled or partially buried images create an archaeology of a personal journey.”

In 2019, Joan and her husband moved from their cottage on the Upper Sacramento River in Dunsmuir, California. Joan and Charlie now are happily living in McMinnville, Oregon, a lovely town in the wine country of the Willamette Valley.

Truly, my ultimate creative endeavor is my own life’s collage, composed of layers of experience, adventure, and color: to me a thrilling and ever-evolving mixed media project. I can’t wait to see what’s next! Whatever it is, it will show up in my art.

~ Joan Pechanec

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