The Art of Joseph Losavio
“The secret of the idea of a blessing to be found in the holy places lies in this principle, that the holy place is no longer a place; it has become a living being.”
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan
The art of Joseph Losavio carries the viewer to an unexpected crossroads: the place where the vibrant and speaking beauty of the natural world meets the infinite, numinous worlds, subtle and rarely visible, of the sacred, ineffable Essence that underlies all. Resonant and rich, Losavio’s paintings evoke the holy places both within us and without, fusing them in an evocative profusion of soaring natural forms, singing color and pattern, and layered symbolism, their soulful dynamism drawing the viewer into unexpected depths. Bold in conception and execution, Losavio’s paintings, with their startling and striking textile collages penetrating into natural landscapes like electric epiphanies from the unseen Spirit, lead us unapologetically into that “holy place” where all the worlds, all the longings of our hearts and minds, meet powerfully in an alchemical marriage of mutual attraction and longed-for fulfillment. Deep sorrows, quiet inlets of peace and blessing, and great shouts of joy flow through his work like the oxbow bends and rearing waterfalls of a great cosmic river. His passionately rendered love of trees reveals them as great and significant personages both in their own nature and in their poetic representation of spiritual teachers and other holy beings. Flowers burst into bloom like fireworks, like speaking words of prophecy. Soaring buildings seem to reverberate with their own emotion, grieving or glorious. Figures, sometimes barely delineated and glimpsed, are yet warmly enticing and blessing, irresistible, grace-filled. The sun and the moon, the stars and the waters, the pensive mountains, in their prominent and poetic placements, each seem to proclaim some sweet and powerful mysterious secret to the viewer. Many fascinating, disparate elements come together and dance in surprising harmonies in Joseph Losavio’s complex and beautiful paintings, evoking the holy places on all levels of existence at once. They exult in the one mystical life, the living being who embodies and enlivens all, drawing us into a vibrant awakening. Losavio’s brilliant and heartfelt work gives these precious holy places an inimitable, illuminating, and unforgettable voice.
-- Stephani Nur Colby
Oh lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white alas! My heart beats loud and fast;— Oh! press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last. ——Percy Bysshe Shelley