Celestial Vaulting, a Visual Aid exhibition of work by Joel Hoyer

Join Visual Aid on September 4th for a free workshop with Joel Hoyer; followed by an artists reception. "Celestial Vaulting" will be on display through the month of September.

By combining sensual surfaces and amorphous shapes with a restrained, formal approach, Hoyer achieves a gorgeous, organic tension in his work. The resulting mixed-media paintings reference landscape and primordial, emergent geological formations.


The artist's first memories are from Hawaii and the Pacific coast. Since childhood he has been making paintings and sculptures of mountains, islands and volcanoes. In his recent "Pacific Rim Series," Hoyer has been focusing primarily on the gilded surface, experimenting with water and oil gilding techniques, and abstracting these historic mediums. He has also developed a unique process, painting on Masi, a special paper from the Island of Vatulele in Fiji. This precious material is made by hand, using a native arts process which involves scraping and pounding the inner bark of the paper mulberry tree.

To prepare his gilded paintings, Hoyer first sizes the wood with traditional rabbit skin glue, then covers the panels in glue-soaked linen. He brushes on 9 or more coats of specially-formulated gesso and then coats the panels with a mixture of gilder's clay and glue. He then applies gold with a liquor of water and alcohol, and after this dries he burnishes the surface with a gilder's agate.

The "Contour" series are made from egg tempera over burnished gold on gessoed wood. Because they are uniquely constructed with tempera layered over gold, the paintings appear to change color, based on the direction of light and the viewer's position in relation to the work. These works inspired the exhibition title, "Celestial vaulting," a term that describes the effect created by framing the sky so that it appears close enough to touch.

This exhibition was curated by Maysoun Wazwaz and Nicole Best, of Visual Aid's X-Team.