Œuvres d'art

In the mid-1970s, Joe inherited a farm, the Cedars, with a substantial garden in Suffolk, UK, where he increasingly spent time away from Paris. The expansive fenestration and doors overlooking the garden introduced natural light from outdoors as the source of illumination and became a catalyst for new and different compositions for him to pursue in his self-professed preoccupation with light and shadow.

“If reflections are a signature to my paintings, then so are shadows. If I am preoccupied with light then I must be equally preoccupied with shadow. I try vainly to turn shadow into light as the Impressionists did, just as I try to turn shadow into colour as the Fauves did [...] I want to keep shadows as shadows and hence let the feeling of my painting be shadowy. Though shadow is the absence of light, the negative to light's positive, it can exert as much power as does light.” [1] 

 Joe Plaskett spent a large portion of his career as what we might call an “intimiste”, his primary and almost exclusive painting place being his home on Rue Pecquay in the historic Le Marais Arrondissement. Admirers, and owners of his paintings as well as visitors to his home will know that it was imbued with light, chandeliers throughout, and their light reflected by the countless mirrors hung. That balcony one notices in the background of many of his interiors looked across a characteristically narrow street of the district. That is to say that natural light was not a primary source for the brilliance Joe accomplished in his paintings. 

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Footnote:

[1] Joseph Plaskett, A Speaking Likeness (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 1999), 186.