Joseph Pisani was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, by a second-generation Italian family with strong ethnic roots. He was originally taught to draw and paint by his grandmother at around the age of seven[2].
He left New York in 1995 and traveled throughout America, including visits to forty-four of the fifty states, before setting off on a "backpack" solo tour of Western Europe. He stayed in Prague for a time, and in 1996 settled in the Rocky Mountains, West of Denver, Colorado. As well as painting and drawing, he began to design and produce furniture and experiment with wood sculpture and mixed media.
In 1998 he traveled again to Europe and the Middle East and found "an interesting spot hidden between two worlds" in South Sinai, Egypt, where he discovered scuba diving. The influence of the colorful underwater life of the Red Sea is apparent in paintings, such as "The Secrets of the Underwater World", and "Deep (Approximately 63 Meters Below the Red Sea)".[3]
In 1999, after leaving Egypt and a six-month period traveling through Southeast Asia, Pisani relocated to Zurich, Switzerland, where he has been based since. His work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the United Nations Office at Geneva in 2008, and has also been on permanent display at the United States Consulate in Zurich since 2006. Pisani has also appeared as a guest on the Swiss television talk show Aeschbacher[1].
Pisani continues to travel extensively, visiting seventy-three countries to date[4] and using his impossible pledge, "How to do Everything in Just One Lifetime"[5], travel, along with philosophy, as the main source of inspiration for his art.
Art
Pisani's work is influenced by the Abstract Expressionism of Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. However, unlike Rothko, who purposely avoided giving titles to his work, because he did not want to influence viewers, Pisani deliberately lends clues through the poetic titles of his paintings:
I attempt to lead my viewers in the right direction about where I was, and what I was thinking or feeling at the time of creating a particular painting. Then, after giving this initial clue, it is my specific purpose to leave the viewers on their own to question how the title relates to the art itself and to decide how the artwork makes them feel in the context of my clues.
Pisani refers to his paintings as "Existential Landscapes",[6] works in which, in his description, the depicted scene serves only as a starting point, with the actual subject being the anticipation, physical difficulty, and emotional aftermath of the journey that produced it. He works on canvas, paper, and reclaimed wood, using acrylic, pencil, and oil pastel, and has described building up and then partially removing layers of paint, through scraping, sanding, and reapplication, as a way of suggesting preserving ephemeral moments that would otherwise be lost.[6] Alongside his paintings, Pisani has documented his journey through photography since 1995,[7] referring to his camera as his "Second Sketchbook." He has described these photographs as a parallel visual record from which some of his paintings are later developed.
Selected Exhibitions
(* denotes solo exhibition)
2026 May, ART1a Gallery, Luzern, "Art for Sight", Charity Exhibition & Auction, in association with Rotary Club Zurich Circle International and Rotary Club Kasr El Nile (Cairo)
2025 March 7–29, Vegalo Atelier, Zurich, Switzerland, "Dust Clouds on the Horizon: A Quarter Century of Serendipitous Mischief", 25 Year Retrospective*
2017 November 7–18, Kulturpark, Zurich, Switzerland, "art braille kanthari", charity auction and exhibition with Stefan Puttaert, Director of Sotheby's Zurich, and Christine Meier.[8]
2017 January–18 March, Galerie Le Sud, Zurich, Switzerland, "The Smoke that Thunders", under the patronage of the Permanent Mission of Zambia to the United Nations (UNO), Geneva.*
2014 January, Kunstgalerie Bachlechner, Bergdietikon, Switzerland, "How to do Everything in Just One Lifetime", under the patronage of the US Consulate in Zurich*
2013 October, Galleria Fogga, Helsinki, Finland, "Oneironauts (Explorers of the Dream World)"*
2011, Kunstgalerie Bachlechner, Bergdietikon, Switzerland, "Chaos Within - 40 Years Pisani", under the patronage of the US Consulate in Zurich*
2011, Gallery Ferin, Helsinki, Finland, "When The Morning Star Begins to Fade"
28 November 2009–16 January 2010, Gallery Eule-Art, Davos, Switzerland, "Fire & Ice"
15 April 2009, Artseefeld, Zurich, Switzerland, "AGENT 488"*
4 February 2008, United Nations Office, Geneva, "Oh Sweet Serendipity", special showing in association with Sri Lanka's 60th Independence Anniversary*[9]
19 January 2008–23 February 2008, Kunstgalerie Bachlechner, Weiningen, Switzerland, "Oh Sweet Serendipity", under the patronage of the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva*
29 September 2007–23 December 2007, Kunstgalerie Bachlechner, Ost Tirol, Austria, "Kunst Verbindet" — together with work by Le Corbusier, Hans Peter Profunser, Marianne Liegl...
27 January 2007–25 February 2007, Kunstgalerie Bachlechner, Weiningen, Switzerland, "Magic Cube" — together with Jan Janczak, Paul Cartier, Paul Racle...
26 October 2006–Present (Permanent Exhibit), Consulate of the USA in Zurich, Switzerland, "All the Colors of My Memories from Home"*
18 November 2006–23 December 2006, Kunstgalerie Bachlechner, Weiningen, Switzerland, "Train Station" — together with Charles Sambono (Zambia), Gerry Mayer (Austria)
2006 September–November, Zurich, Switzerland, "That Lasting Tingle of Déjà Vu", under the patronage of the Consulate of the USA in Zurich*
Mordasini, Marco, "Ausdrucksstark mit Liebe zum Detail 'Chaos Within' Eröffnung", Limmattaler Zeitung, 30 August 2011, page 16 (Article as PDF)
"Every Great Journey Begins with a Dream" Joseph Pisani lecture sponsored by the US Embassy in Finland and conducted at the American Resource Center at the National Library of Finland, Helsinki, 31 March 2011 (Link to US Embassy in Finland website news)
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