Press Release
Joseph Lozano: A Discreet History of Trees
Exhibition Dates: February 21 – March 22, 2025
Gallery Hours: Fri & Sat, 11 am – 4 pm, or by appointment
Location: Gross McCleaf Gallery, 123 Leverington Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19127
Gross McCleaf Gallery is proud to present A Discreet History of Trees, a solo exhibition of new paintings by artist Joseph Lozano. The show features 14 works that interweave historical narratives, personal reflections, and painterly exploration into dynamic compositions that transcend traditional boundaries of realism and abstraction.
Lozano’s work is deeply rooted in storytelling and a fascination with the fluid boundary between reality and imagination. His frequent hikes in the Wissahickon, where he has spent years observing the landscape and reflecting on its history, have shaped his artistic practice. Drawing inspiration from the Hermits of the Wissahickon, a 17th-century monastic society that sought spiritual refuge in the wilderness of Philadelphia with their leader Johannes Kelpius, Lozano’s paintings engage with the enigmatic and the ephemeral, weaving together mystical elements and personal mythology to create layered narratives that blur the boundaries between past and present. Kris Soffa, Trail Ambassador for the Friends of the Wissahickon (FOW), writes, “These 40 celibate monks (all of whom were men), called themselves ‘The Society of the Woman of the Wilderness.’ Their inspiration was based on an elaborate interpretation of the biblical passage from the Book of Revelations 12:16 in which a woman waited at the edge of the wilderness in prayer and meditation to prepare for the End of Days. They interpreted this verse to mean they should find a location at the edge of the wilderness to await the apocalypse,”. Reflecting on the hermits’ legacy and its resonance today, Lozano observes, "Their story started to feel a little less crazy and more like a mirror to ours,".
While Lozano’s subjects often emerge from intuitive associations of symbolism and metaphor, his practice remains anchored in the physicality of paint. "The true subjects of my paintings are color relationships," Lozano states. “Color only exists in context…One color placed next to another is all you need to create a vibration of space on a flat surface.” This philosophy is evident in works like The Entwined Ducks, where the juxtaposition of studio objects and references to Middle Kingdom Egyptian paintings creates an elastic sense of space and time. The exhibition highlights the intersection of his meticulous process and pursuit of myth, where every choice is imbued with meaning. Forty Days, for instance, reflects the hermits’ obsession with the biblical significance of the number 40, with Lozano painting over the same surface 40 times to chronicle seasonal transitions. “By the time I finished the painting, it was completely covered with tape, and I had no idea what it looked like until I removed the tape piece by piece,” he recounts. This process of discovery echoes the philosophical undertones of his work, balancing belief and doubt, and memory and experience.
Joseph Lozano: A Discreet History of Trees is both a celebration of the painter’s craft and a meditation on the interwoven stories of nature, community, and history. It invites viewers to slow down, reflect, and see the familiar with fresh eyes—a journey, like Lozano’s paintings, where failure and discovery coexist. In this exhibition, Lozano bridges the boundaries of his attic studio and the woods beyond, blending geometric patterns and organic forms by tying moments of change—both in nature and in life—to an exploratory microcosm of the Hermit’s Wissahickon world. His paintings do not seek to provide answers but instead open portals to contemplation, where past and present blur, and where the viewer is left to wander, much like the hermits themselves, in search of meaning.
Joseph Lozano (b. 1982, Philadelphia, PA) grew up in a religious community in the suburbs of Philadelphia, the son of a preacher. His path as an artist began when he was invited to work with Tim Rollins and Kids of Survival (KOS), subsequently becoming a member of KOS. Traditionally trained, He received an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), Philadelphia, PA, in 2009 and a certificate in painting at PAFA in 2007. His oil paintings are images of magical realism; painted in many layers -with a singular attention to how color can create a variety of sensations of space. Lozano’s themes lie at an intersection, between grand historical narratives about exploration and the beautiful banality of his current domestic life. He has exhibited extensively in the northeast and is the recipient of the PAFA Museum Permanent Collection J.M.C. Purchase Prize, the Women’s Board European Travel Scholarship and the Wolf/Khan painting fellowship to attend the Vermont Studio Center. He teaches painting at Immaculata University and lives on the edge of the woods in Philadelphia with his wife and two creative children.
Lydia Panas: All The Dahlias
Exhibition Dates: February 21 – March 22, 2025
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present All The Dahlias, a solo exhibition by visual artist Lydia Panas. Featuring eight striking photographic prints, All The Dahlias transforms the familiar beauty of flowers into a meditation on awareness, transformation, and emotional depth. Rich in color and texture, these images layer the lush vibrancy of freshly cut blooms with the delicate transience of fading petals, presenting a nuanced exploration of time, memory, and personal transformation.
Panas, a first-generation American raised between Greece and the United States, is known for her perceptive and psychologically charged portraiture. In All The Dahlias, she shifts her focus from the human figure to botanical still life, yet the same themes of presence, connection, and introspection remain central. Inspired by the tension between belief and knowledge, light and dark, beauty and decay, Panas' images capture what she describes as, "the difficulty of facing uncomfortable truths." As she explains, "The flowers in this work are not about flowers. They represent growth and change... Holding on to pleasure is about understanding the darkness as well."
Shot from above into a wheelbarrow filled with layers of fresh and wilting dahlias, these compositions balance the formal qualities of still life with an intuitive, painterly process. "The process does feel like abstract painting," Panas notes. "Working with composition, light, and color." The natural light, shifting throughout the day, enhances the deep saturation of the petals, while the reflective water and scattered pine needles introduce a dynamic interplay of textures. While Panas typically works with a view camera and large format film, this series was created with a medium-format digital camera, allowing her to work quickly as she documented the fleeting life cycle of the flowers over the course of two months.
All The Dahlias extends themes Panas has explored throughout her career—intimacy, transformation, and the subconscious. Just as her portraits invite viewers into a charged, psychological space, these floral compositions hold their own intensity. They evoke both the rich traditions of Dutch still-life painting and a contemporary reevaluation of beauty and impermanence. "Old stories are part of who we are," Panas reflects. "And we need to understand them to move on." By embracing both the lushness of life and the inevitability of change, All The Dahlias invites viewers to reflect on their own perceptions of beauty, time, and personal evolution.
Lydia Panas is a visual artist working with photography and video. A first-generation American, she was raised between Greece and the United States. Panas’ work investigates identity and what lies beneath the surface, exploring the tensions between presence, memory, and emotional depth. Her images are made in the fields, forests, and studio of her family farm in Pennsylvania, a landscape that deeply informs her artistic vision.
Panas' work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally and is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Palm Springs Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, among others. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Hyperallergic, and Photo District News, among others. She has received numerous awards, including repeat invitations to the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize Exhibit, the Top Fifty Winner for Critical Mass, and two nominations for the Prix Pictet. Panas has held artist residencies at MASS MoCA and the Banff Centre for the Arts and has been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.
She holds degrees from Boston College, the School of Visual Arts, and New York University and has published three monographs: The Mark of Abel (Kehrer Verlag 2012), Falling from Grace (Conveyor Arts 2016), and Sleeping Beauty (MW Editions 2021). She divides her time between a farm in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and New York City.