Joel Dean

Joel Dean, born in 1986 in Atlanta, GA, is an artist currently based in New York. He has a diverse artistic practice that encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation. Throughout his work, Dean explores the stability of cultural symbols and signs.

In his large-scale oil paintings on canvas, Dean employs alphabetical characters as a starting point to create intricate and fantastical panoramas. Using initials as a recognizable form of signification, he densely populates the archetypal origins with personal symbology and serpentine narratives, avoiding a one-dimensional interpretation.

Dean's sculptures and installations similarly complicate the meanings of visual icons, pushing for more complex interpretations. His "Big Apples" sculptures are choked with overgrowth, city skylines are composed of stacks of currency, and porcelain angels are perched atop glowing fluorescent lighting. By undermining the simplicity of the symbols he employs, Dean expands their meanings.

Overall, Joel Dean's art challenges viewers to question the stability and simplicity of cultural symbols and to engage with their more complex and multifaceted meanings.