Joseph Yonke
Joseph Yonke is a painter from Pittsburgh, PA, based in Miami, FL. Yonke’s work is a continuation of what he learned while growing up painting and drawing with his grandfather, artist Robert Yonke. During Yonke’s upbringing, and often located in his grandfather’s garage-studio, he tried to distort, replicate, emulate, abstract, and dissemble all subject matters. Creating around his grandfather was a lesson in freedom, experimentation, and design, but not necessarily rule-following after the fundamentals were taught. These practices carry into the work Yonke creates today and will throughout his career.
Collect Bean: What is one of your current goals as an artist?
Joseph Yonke: A similar question has come up over the last few months, and after thinking it over deeply, rather simply, what I really care about is the ability to sustain my practice and, at the end of it all, hopefully, be considered a great painter. On a more specific, day-to-day basis, this means to keep developing as much as possible, artistically and personally.
Collect Bean: If you could be in a show with any artist, who would it be and why?
Joseph Yonke: Joyce Pensato. She was such a badass and exemplified a true artist in every sense of the term. Pensato spent her whole career in obscurity but still managed to create a remarkable body of work over the decades. It was only towards the end of her life when she experienced the reward for her merit, but at least she got to for a bit while she was here. Her work is intense, bold, dynamic, and profoundly in dialogue with modern times.
Collect Bean: Where are you currently finding inspiration?
Joseph Yonke: I’ve been getting close with really remarkable artists, and getting to know them and their work on a deeper level is easily the most inspiring occurrence of my journey.
Collect Bean: How does where you grew up influence your work?
Joseph Yonke: I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and also in rural America. Both influences resonate significantly with the work I grew up making and currently make today. There were a lot of industrial, artificial and organic, natural elements present. Both were beautiful, but heavy and challenging in their own ways.
Collect Bean: Are there any recurring themes or motifs in your art, and if so, what do they represent to you?
Joseph Yonke: Yes, especially with the character I’ve developed. The concept behind the character includes a few main motifs. When I wasn’t creating art with my grandfather, I would either draw or paint during recess in elementary school or after school when I finished my homework. During this time in my life, I was bullied often, and to cope with that, I would draw “superheroes” to feel a sense of power and identity that could handle or cope with the situations I’d often find myself in; this was the beginning of the character I create today. As I’ve become older and more aware of society and the world around me, motifs such as a symbiosis of technology and humans, as well as the prevalence of conflict (war), are incorporated. So consequently, the character will be continually developed throughout my career.
