There’s something unusual about the paintings of Melinda and Joe Ostraff: something that even though never seen before, seems familiar. A work like “Tide Pool #1” isn’t just a bunch of colors arranged in a balanced, dynamic composition. The parts, a folded pink veil with a hole through […]
“You’re just an appropriator.” That’s what a young, huffy art student said to Joe Ostraff in 1993 when he was a finalist for his current teaching position at Brigham Young University’s art department. Negative comments like that typically bounce right off him. In fact, although he’s sure he […]
Phillips artist, two-time Utah Arts Council Visual Arts fellow and BYU professor, Joe Ostraff is heading out of state next week to install a project in an exhibition: Affect + Reason at the Institute for Humanities Research at ASU in Tempe. He tells us about “Flash: An installation”: […]
As minimal as the works are, one can find several levels of meaning and articulation working within Joe Ostraff’s sophisticated and nuanced canvases. They describe larger pictorial structures while at the same time addressing themselves intimately, thus speaking in variations to different aspects of a viewer’s receptivity. A […]
In 2010, Brigham Young University Joe Ostraff professor received a Visual Art Fellowship from the Utah Arts Council. It was his second time. The first time, in 1993, he won for a group of paintings done with his children. He’s been looking for collaborative opportunities ever since. […]
by Kasey Boone, Geoff Wichert, Shawn Rossiter While not everything, context is something in a work of art and these three reviews of current shows in Salt Lake examine various ways in which what goes on once a work has left the studio can influence what we call “art.” Erin Berrett […]
Joe Ostraff Joseph Ostraff received an MFA from the University of Washington and teaches primarily painting, drawing, and advanced studio courses. He has directed/ co-directed multiple collaborative projects between BYU and programs such as Wirral Met, Liverpool, UK; Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, NZ; MCLA, North Adams, MA, […]
