Wherever Joseph Cave looks, he sees a world of vitality and color, and it is that world he redesigns on canvas. In the tradition of the early landscape artists, both the American scene painters and the French impressionists, he paints from life and every stroke considers the fleeting moment. Trained as an abstract expressionist, line and shadow provide the surface and depth for his forms. Intense hues add emotion.
Cave's technique of thick, lustrous brush strokes that retain the integrity of the medium before suggesting nature's form is reminiscent of Van Gough, but there the comparison ends. While Van Gogh's canvases writhe with an intolerable energy that sends out messages of caution, Cave's invite and beckon, but never intimidate. Optimism floods these canvases whether the theme examines a freshly mowed field or an out-of-date railroad trestle. Even his flowers are not nature mort, but brilliant clusters of living things.
Every painting is constructed to include the spectator in the work. From the small country road to the old ball field, the scene opens up, inviting the viewer into the composition. A rural North Carolina landscape is not just a tobacco field, a road, and a distant house, but a vivid place that calls for a visit. There is the same promise in everything he paints, from a garden shop, to quiet shrimp boats, to a field of soybeans. Just seek out the entry at the edge of each frame and your eyes will do the rest.
Wherever this artist sets up his easel, he captures the essence of the place, from the coastal views of his current home in South Carolina to the scenes painted as an ex-patriot living in Portugal.
Beneath Joseph Cave's successful idyllic scenes is a lifetime of lessons begun almost forty years ago as a young abstract expressionist and a Bay Area figurative artist. Shape and color, the substance of nature, are made visible and, in this way, he has helped reinvent the way we see and the quality of that vision.
Blue Greenberg, Art Critic, Durham Herald Sun
Art History, Meredith College
EDUCATION<
br>
1954-58
University of Georgia, Athens, GA: Majored in Painting
1961-62
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting
1963-64
San Francisco State College, San Francisco, CA: Master of Arts, Painting and Printmaking
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
1964-66
Memphis Academy of Art, Memphis, TN
Instructor, Drawing and Painting
1965-66
Southwestern at Memphis, Memphis, TN
Instructor, Painting (part-time)
1966-67
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
Instructor, Design (part-time)
1967-68
San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
nstructor, Design (part-time)
1967-71
Crystal Springs School, Hillsborough, CA
Head of Art Dept., Instructor, Art and Art History
1971-73
Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, CA
Instructor, Painting (part-time)
1979-84
Mendocino Community College, Ukiah, CA
Instructor, Drawing, Painting, Art History, Design (part-time)
EXHIBITIONS
2014 Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh, NC: Solo Show
2012 Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh, NC: Solo Show
2009 Adam Cave Fine Art, 1Raleigh, NC: Solo Show
2008
Cheryl Newby Gallery, Pawleys Island, SC: One-Man Show
Cheryl Newby Gallery, Pawleys Island, SC: Group Show
Adam Cave Fine Art, Raleigh, NC: Group Show
2007
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
Cheryl Newby Gallery, Pawleys Island, SC: One-Man Show
2006
Mims Gallery, NC Wesleyan College, Rocky Mount, NC: Invitational
2005
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man show
Cheryl Newby Gallery, Pawleys Island, SC: One-Man Show
2004
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
2003
Cheryl Newby Gallery, Pawleys Island, SC: One-Man Show
2002
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
Cheryl Newby Gallery, Pawleys Island, SC: One-Man Show
Shain Fine Art, Charlotte, NC: Two-Man Show
2001
Brazier Fine Art, Richmond, VA: One-Man Show
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
The Wells Gallery, Charleston, SC: Three-Man Show
2000
Broadhurst Gallery, Pinehurst, NC: One-Man Show
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
1999
The Wells Gallery, Charleston, SC: One-Man Show
Shain Fine Art, Charlotte, NC: Group Show
Brazier Fine Art, Richmond, VA: One-Man Show
1998
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
1997
Broadhurst Gallery, Pinehurst, NC: One-Man Show
Brazier Fine Art, Richmond, VA: One-Man Show
1996
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
1995
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC: One-Man Show
1991
Somerhill Gallery, Chapel Hill, NC:One-Man Show
1989
Galleria Internacional de Arte, Almancil, Portugal: Five-Man Show
1988
William Gallery, St. Helena, CA: Three-Man Show
Galleria 44, Portimao, Portugal: One-Man Show
1987
Colectiva de Pintura, Estoril, Portugal: Invitational
1986
Hoskins Gallery, Cabo da Roca, Portugal: One-Man Show
1985
Thackeray Gallery, London, England: Group Show
1984
Rorick Gallery, San Francisco, CA: One-Man Show
1983
Rorick Gallery, San Francisco, CA: One-Man Show
1980
Philippe Bonnafont Gallery, St. Helena, CA: One-Man Show
1977
Wilkinson-Cobb Gallery, Mendocino, CA: One-Man Show
1975
Phillips-Allen Gallery, San Francisco, CA: One-Man Show
1969
South Carolina Invitational, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC: Invitational
1968
Lawson Galleries, San Francisco, CA: One-Man Show
1966
Artist Registry Show, Brooks Memorial Gallery, Memphis, TN: Three-Man Invitational
Art in the Embassies Program, U.S. Dept. of State: Invitational
1964
Southwestern at Memphis, Memphis, TN: One-Man Show
1961
Quay Gallery, Tiburon, CA: Group Show
MUSEUM AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS (partial list)
Carolina First Bank, Columbia, SC
Capital Broadcasting Corporation (Durham Bulls), Durham, NC
Central Carolina Bank, Durham, NC
Domtar Corporation, Oakland, CA*
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. Research Triangle Park, NC
Hibernia Bank, San Francisco, CA
James Properties, Inc. (Hampton Inns), Wilson,
Mark Spano Communications, Inc. Chapel Hill, NC
Memphis Academy of Art, Memphis, TN
>Moore Regional Hospital, Pinehurst, NC*
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Offices of Joao Pedro Tavares, Engineer, Lisbon, Portugal*
Offices of Michaels and Jones, Raleigh, NC*
Offices of US Senator John Edwards, Washington, DC
Ritz Hotel, Lisbon, Portugal
San Benito House, Half Moon Bay, CA*
Silverado Tavern, Calistoga, CA
>TIAA-CREF, Raleigh, NC
Treyburn Corporation (office of Terry Sanford, Jr.), Durham, NC
Wake Neurological Center, Raleigh, NC*<
Winstons Grill, Raleigh, NC
* two, or more, paintings in their collection