Joyce Pensato is best known for energetic charcoal drawings and enamel paintings of comic book characters including Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat, Homer Simpson, and Batman. As she rendered these wholesome icons with a sense of menace, she highlighted the darkness and complexity underlying the surface of contemporary pop culture. In her largely monochromatic works, Pensato corrupted her characters’ familiar forms with layers of aggressive, gestural brushstrokes as well as drips and splatters of paint. Pensato’s apparently frenzied process was quite deliberate; the artist erased and repainted until her compositions felt complete. During her lifetime, Pensato exhibited widely and enjoyed institutional shows at the High Museum of Art, the Albertina Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. Her work has sold for six figures on the secondary market and can be found in prestigious collections around the world.

Joyce Pensato

American

Main

Artist

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Snowball Mickey