Joseph Wyatt

A leaning barn...A rusty rain barrel...A forgotten shed.
All are reflections of our bygone past, a haunting past that implores us to return to more simple times. In our hectic, hurried world we often crave the peace and serenity of those far-gone days of yesteryear. Such are the subjects of American artist Joseph Wyatt.

Joseph Wyatt was born in 1943 on a farm in Northeast Alabama. This was a time of transition from a vanishing era into our accelerated modern age. The youngest of three brothers, he was left to play alone most of the time. It was these times of solitude that endeared him to the simple pastimes which could be found in a barn hallway, a corncrib, or merely warming against the wall of a shed on a cool winter day.

All his rural paintings mirror those simple, peaceful times he enjoyed as a child. Whether it be a battered froe hanging on the wall of a dimly lit barn hallway, or a timeworn pair of old hunting boots languishing in the corner, or a weatherworn shed, gently swaying with the cool autumn breezes, his emotions are stirred by these icons and their timeless beauty. His paintings are executed in transparent watercolor, which lends itself well to conveying the loneliness and isolation of his subjects.

That age of simplicity is now just a fading shadow left in the minds of those who saw it. A delicate shading is all that remains of yesteryear.