Artist Bio
The work of oil painter, Joan Witte, straddles genres. Her main influences are Picasso, Mark Rothko, Georgia O’Keefe, Matisse, Salvador Dali, and Diego Rivera. Similar to the abstract expressionists, her paintings, while more representational in style, express the subconscious and/or life experiences. Heavily influenced by her rural Michigan upbringing, her forms are rooted in nature and science.
Witte is primarily self-taught. As a child growing up on a farm in southeast Michigan, she was preoccupied with art before she started kindergarten. In school, her classroom notes were involved doodles sparsely sprinkled with words. Her bedroom walls were her palette and set the stage for a preference for painting large-scale pieces. Her career as a painter started in 2019.
She received some training at community colleges and Eastern Michigan University. She continues to pursue her education today through art centers and fellow artists.
Juried Exhibits: Scarab Club, 111th Gold Members Show
Riverside Art Gallery, The Winter Solstice
St. Lawrence Street Gallery, Think Small
Swords into Plowshares, Women's Liberation 2024
Riverside Art Center, Anything but Canvas
Art 634
Glen Arbor Arts Center 2024
Plymouth Community Council of the Arts 2024
Michigan Woman's Caucus 2023
Black Box Cafe and Art Gallery, June 2022
Looking to the Light, Galerie Camille, 2022
Huron River Artist Collective, Oct to Dec. 3, 2021
Three Cities Art Club 9th Annual Juried Exhibit 2021-2022, Westland City Hall, MI (Nov. 5 to Jan. 17, 2022)
Retail Partner Frameworks, Plymouth MI
Group Exhibits Joe and Rosie Coffee and Tea, Dexter, MI (Summer 2021) Sweetwaters Coffee and Tea, Ann Arbor, MI (Summer 2020) Between the Comments, fundraiser for the National Alliance of Mental Illness (July 1-14, 2020)