Angelina Joseph
Angelina Joseph is an artist working across painting, printmaking, ceramics, and mixed media, creating intimate visual narratives that explore grief, memory, and the fragile nature of time. Her work often reflects on personal loss, childhood perception, and the emotional distance between what we experience and what we are able to understand. Through expressive figures, altered features, and darkly tender compositions, Joseph gives shape to feelings that are often difficult to name.
The Observers
About The Artwork
The Observers is a representation of how kids, like me growing up, felt when they saw their parents having heated arguments in front of them. In this work, this turmoil is literally ripping their kids apart, and the parents are completely unaware. Often, parents don’t realize that their kids are watching and absorbing every little thing said between them. Kids are always observing and forming their expectations of what their relationships should look like based on their parents’s example. With this work, I wanted people to focus on the impact a child faces when seeing their parents verbally tear each other down. I have vivid memories as a kid where I would often see my parents get like this, and I felt torn seeing two people I love verbally hurt each other. With this piece, I want people to find connection in knowing they’re not alone in feeling this same way, and to hopefully remind parents to be more aware of the impact they have on their kids.
Artist Statement
I am an artist who creates paintings, prints, and ceramics of people and objects within intimate spaces that grapple with grief. It's in our nature as people to take for granted the things we have, the people in our lives, and the time we have with them. We have them until suddenly, one day, they’re gone. We take, we use, and we consume. I was once a part of this cycle until my world flipped upside down. When I was fourteen years old, my father passed away, and as I have gotten older, I have lost others in my life, which has shown me many insights into the process of grief. Dealing with grief is a central theme across most of my work and what I often find myself drawn to. Besides grief, my work often reflects on the memories of my childhood and how I had interpreted things as a child compared to reality. The overall process of creating and expressing my feelings through visual narratives helps me process my grief. The goal of my work is to invite the viewer into my world and to form a connection over the experiences I’m voicing. The body of my work largely consists of oil on canvas, with the occasional print, ceramic piece, or multimedia sculpture. With my paintings, I aim to render convincing forms to develop three-dimensional figures and objects in a two-dimensional space. I do this because I want to bring to life the visual narrative I’m creating, to make it believable for myself and the viewer. I often find myself depicting the human figure with exaggerated or altered features to reflect my feelings, such as numbness, pain, disassociation, and as a tool to make the viewer uneasy. The visual narratives I depict in my work are reflections of my personal journey with grief and have become a cathartic process for me to work through my grief. As an artist, I express my own personal trauma of processing grief and the value of life through dark, somewhat humorous compositions. These artworks highlight how I've seen the consumption of things, people, and time since I was a kid till present day. The act of putting visuals to invisible feelings and thoughts gives me an outlet to express myself. With this body of work, my goal is to remind people to appreciate the time they have with their loved ones and to be kind to those around them because you never know how much time you have with them till they're gone.
Joseph gives visual form to grief, memory, and the quiet emotional weight of what remains after loss.
