JOE RADOCCIA
AMERICAN, b. 1961
Joe Radoccia. "Suggestion." 2003. Oil, graphite and collage on panel. Offered in AFTER DARK on 23 April 2026.
NOTE: The following article is NSFW and includes images of artistic nudity.
Joseph Radoccia (b. 1961) is an American contemporary artist whose practice centers on portraiture, the male figure, and LGBTQ identity. Radoccia was born in upstate New York and was raised in the city of Buffalo. He studied graphic design at the State University of New York at Buffalo and earned a bachelor’s degree (1982) and later MFA in painting (1985).
In the late 1980s, he relocated to Brooklyn to pursue his career as a professional artist. Radoccia’s work has focused intensely on intimate relationships, desire, loss and the emotional realities facing the LGBTQ community, particularly during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s. During that same period, he branched into sculpture and oil painting to explore fear, intimacy, and the expression of sexuality.
Joe Radoccia. Acrylic, graphite, and collage on panel. Offered in AFTER DARK on 25 July 2024.
Radoccia presented Love Game in 1997 which was the first of several solo exhibitions at the Leslie-Lohman Foundation of Gay and Lesbian Art, the only museum of its kind in the United States dedicated to artwork documenting the LGBTQ experience. Radoccia left the hustle and bustle of New York City in 2011. He moved on to quieter pastures, eventually settling in the city of Beacon in the Hudson Valley where he still lives and works today.
Radoccia has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester, the Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center in association with the Smithsonian Institution, the State University of New York, and the Ethan Cohen Gallery in New York City.
Joe Radoccia. "Three Soldiers of the Revolution" 2010. Oil and graphite on panel. Offered in AFTER DARK on 25 July 2024.
A significant body of work within his career is the Founding Fathers series in which Radoccia reinterprets iconic figures from early US history. He paints exaggerated close-ups of the genitals of American revolutionary figures set in ornate Syroco-style frames. Through a contemporary lens, Radoccia connects historical names to an erotic and queer sensibility which he imbues with humor. Through this series, Radoccia challenges traditional narratives of power, masculinity, and national identity.
Joe Radoccia. "Suggestion." 2003. Oil, graphite and collage on panel. Offered in AFTER DARK on 23 April 2026.
A former partner of Radoccia’s had familial ties to Madagascar. Their regular trips to the island nation —where the artist found a profound sense of peace and tranquility— inspired another entire body of work. On one of many visits to the island, Radoccia would absorb his surroundings throughout the day and later paint “a collage of what he took in,” creating compositions that reflected “the culmination of what he experienced,” rather than any single moment or scene.[1] Major exhibitions of his Malagasy-inspired works were held at the Leslie-Lohman Museum (2003) and the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon (2012).
His work is held in many private and institutional collections, including the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and the Gerald Mead Collection. In 2020, Radoccia was awarded the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Artist Fellowship in recognition of his artistic achievement in the category of drawing.
Notes
[1] Larry Curtis Jr., “The Art of a Man; Local Artist Talks Life and His Creative Process,” The Impact (9 November, 2012).
Contributors
Barry Oliver
Cataloger, LGBTQ+ Art & Material Culture
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