Satish began as a painter and printmaker and moved gradually into the realm of sculpture in the 1980s. His paintings represent a continuum of a technical and aesthetic style that he began developing in the early 1970s.
His paintings are created on canvas or wood using a combination of acrylic modeling paste, gesso, and oil paints, through which he creates painted textured surfaces with a three-dimensional appearance. His own personal style of abstract expressionism began with the Light Series, which treated his subjects of light, color and texture as abstract elements of the natural world. A solo exhibition of this work in 1981 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts was followed by two exhibitions at Phoenix Gallery in New York. His large-scale canvases of the 1980s, which sent the viewer flying outward into the vastness of the cosmos, have gradually given way in the 1990s and 2000s to a more intimate realization of the natural world. Working on shaped palettes of wood, Satish gives the viewer the illusion of being inside, gazing outward through a window, while simultaneously sharing his inner private vision. He has explored other elements of the natural landscape in his Sunflower series, his abstract landscapes of the American southwest, and his Reflections paintings of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Satish is also known for his figurative paintings of enigmatic nudes, a series that illustrates his keen desire to incorporate his skill at figurative stone carving into the flat surfaces of his paintings.
Stone and steel sculpture became important aspects of Satish's oeuvre in the mid-1980s. He is self-taught in both media. His steel pieces fall into two categories, found object assemblage and “drawings on steel.” His alabaster and marble sculptures range from table-sized pieces to monumental scale installation works.
Under his creative direction, the Riverdale Country School Environmental Art Apprenticeship Program has installed several of his monumental conceptual sculptures on the School campus. These include large-scale abstract works in stone, wood, cement and steel. His monumental scale stone sculptures include two pieces commissioned and installed by Riverdale Country School. Celebration is a 12' limestone male torso seated on a base that contains engraved representations of all the arts; Out of The Past is a standing male nude, partially exposed from a 15' limestone block. His marble work includes a 12' long, 14,000 pound, reclining male nude, installed in a private setting in Southampton. Additional private commissions include a 30' found object metal wall and representational pieces in steel and stone.
Satish Joshi was born in India in 1945. He graduated from the New Delhi College of Art in 1968 with an honors degree in painting and printmaking and moved to New York in 1969. He has taught at Riverdale Country School since 1974. Satish was on the Board of Directors of Phoenix Gallery in New York City, and is a founding member of Art on Main Street in Yonkers. Satish Joshi is known professionally by his first name.
