Joseph Cavalieri is an award-winning native New York artist and educator. His work can be seen in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design, the Leslie-Lohman Museum, the Italian American Museum, and the Stax Museum. He has exhibited in the US and Europe, most recently a solo show at the Ivy Brown Gallery in Chelsea, New York. Cavalieri has produced private and public art commissions including an MTA Arts for Transit public art installation at the Philipse Manor Train Station in Westchester, New York. Cavalieri works in a material with a powerful spiritual history: painted stained glass. Since 1997, he has taught workshops around the world, and has been invited to over 17 artist residencies. In 2015, he was the keynote speaker for the Glass Society of Ireland and NCAD Glass Conference.

ARTIST STATEMENT

You could call me a “glass missionary” with an agenda to widen the perception of traditional painted stained glass. I often tell people my mission in life is to take stained glass out of the church and into the public. To date I’ve created 15 works based on the Simpsons and R. Crumb, some very non-traditional subjects in stained glass.

It’s obvious that my work includes humor, but more importantly each piece I make has a challenge. My background is in graphic design, working as art director in magazines in Manhattan including GQ, People and Good Housekeeping. I consider my glass art to be visual layouts, and plan how an individual will view the work. I think about the color, size and placement of the images, and arrange these so the sequence will draw the viewer deep inside the work, where they will ponder the meaning of the story.

I explore form, space and perspective using techniques of fired and layered painted glass that dates back to Medieval times.

My work includes technical challenges like hand painting 25 Empire State Buildings, 13 Krusty the Clowns, and a 17 headed Moe. Currently I am working on works of historic engravings.

I have been working in painted stained glass since 1997. In 2009 I opened my glass studio in downtown New York.

Website: cavaglass.org
Instagram: @joseph_cavalieri_glass
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joseph.cavalieri.5