With a quick hand and strong, gestural lines, Joyce Marie Pensato deftly uncovered the pathos of American pop culture with her dark renderings of figures including Donald Duck, Homer Simpson, Groucho Marx, and Mickey Mouse. She was, as critic Roberta Smith wrote, “a painter who took the Abstract out of Abstract Expressionism and added a little Pop,” and her studio was known to be filled with figurines of the characters she depicted, sourced from thrift stores. “For all the humor and goofiness that comes across in these large in-your face paintings, there is something alarming about them,” wrote John Yau, “[Pensato’s] humorous, sad sack caricatures barely contain a suppressed rage. Their exaggerated features speak directly to the fractured American psyche, especially when it comes to race, ethnicity, and notions of beauty.” Today, Pensato’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, among others.
