Studio Visit: Joseph Lupo

The following is a guest post by Taryn McMahon.

“Street”, CMYK Silkscreen, 4.5″x10″, 2012 (Photo provided by Joseph Lupo)

On a cold and rainy January day, I visited Joseph Lupo at his studio along the muddy banks of the Monongahela River. His studio, well organized yet packed with action figure collections, wall-to-wall posters, and artwork, occupies a corner on the third floor of West Virginia University’s Creative Arts Center, where he also teaches printmaking.

Lupo’s studio practice is cyclical, spending entire seasons at his computer scanning and editing batches of digital images, followed by months of pure printing. Right now, he is focused on preparing digital images to be printed for an upcoming visiting artist stint at Ohio State University in early February. We talked about his current directions and in-progress work, and I got a great insight into his rich source material and process.

The imagery for his recent work carefully dissects the compositional and narrative strategies of this 1984 Iron Man comic. His exploration of the underlying structure of the comic is methodical and sequential. In the initial series of this long term project, which began in 2005, he isolated thought and word bubbles from the story and removed all contextual information, including the text.

“It sure has been boring around here…”, Aquatint and Mezzotint, 8″x8″, 2005.

This high density styrofoam piece was made in a Morgantown sign shop by coating the foam and then sandblasting to create recesses. The raised surface of the foam was then painted.

Another high density styrofoam piece. They are both interesting as finished objects and signs, but their form also references relief blocks.

From there, each series has gradually re-introduced small tastes of the original context information: entire page sequences, half tones, and most recently color. But figures and text are rarely the focal point, which distinguishes Lupo’s series from other comics-inspired artworks that explore characters and story lines as their subject. These works approach a minimalist sensibility emphasizing formal strategies and the idea of narrative itself over exploring any specific narrative or characters.

“Ready to wet the whistle, pal?”, Silkscreen, 22″x30″, 2006, Published at Artist Image Resource in Pittsburgh. Its composition is based on the top sequence from this page of Iron Man on the right.

“IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 15″, Silkscreen on grey BFK, 10″x6.5”, 2011, and its source on the right.

Clockwise from top left: “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 23″, IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 22”, “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 21”, “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 20”, “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 19”, “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 18”, “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 17”, and “IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 15″, all are CMYK Silkscreen, 10″x6.5”, 2012

“IRON MAN Vol.01 Issue 178 Page 15” and the original page 15 on the right.

“Building…”, CMYK Silkscreen, 10.5″x7.5″, 2012, and its source page on the right.

The process of printing these in CMYK, as the 1984 comic was, inserts some of the feel of the original images in the final print.

Test prints that Lupo uses as postcards, note cards, stickers, and other ephemera.

Test prints galore!

Proposal for a billboard project in Morgantown (Photo provided by Joseph Lupo)

Proposal for a mural listing every word in Iron Man Vol.01 Issue 178 at Artist Image Resource in Pittsburgh.(Photo provided by Joseph Lupo)

In upcoming work, Lupo sees the possibility of infusing more of himself into the process and taking greater liberties to diverge from the original source material. But he still finds plenty to explore about his subject, and is currently counting and cataloging every word in the issue.

Portrait of Lupo from a poster drawn by his students.

You can see more work and production shots here and at josephlupo.com. Many thanks to Joseph for the studio tour and here’s a few last pics from his studio.

Bill Fick posters.