Joanne Meurer and the Power of Chaos

The nature of creativity is always an elusive thing to pin down.

Some artists will talk about their influences for hours; others will just shrug their shoulders and gesture to the cosmos.

Joanne Meurer, a New York City-based painter and entrepreneur, is one of those artists who doesn’t over-analyze what they do. But when pressed, she’ll tell you that her work has its origins in chaos.

“I feel like I absorb everybody else’s stuff,” she says. “It sticks in my head until it just has to have some place to go. What I do is an expression of the chaos all around me. And when I’m painting, I’m relieving some of that chaos.”

When Meurer steps into her home studio in Staten Island’s West Brighton neighborhood – often under the watchful eyes of Gaia and Gabriel, her two impossibly fluffy Ragdoll cats – she’s never sure where the work will take her.

“I’ll stand in front of a blank canvas or a piece I’ve already started working on, and I’ll look at it and ask, ‘When are you going to come to me? When are you going to make something of yourself?’” she says, laughing. “It always starts off in this chaotic way.”

Much of Meurer’s work literally jumps off the wall. For any given piece, she might incorporate wire, plaster, mesh, corrugated cardboard, string, burlap, even sea glass, to create mixed-media reliefs and sculptural paintings that refuse to be confined to two dimensions.

Floral patterns and random shapes, some funky and severe, some more psychedelic and whimsical, extend out into the viewing space. Meurer’s flowers give off a certain vulnerability, yet they don’t feel delicate. They’re way too kinetic and explosive – too full of movement and unexpected colors and materials.

The dimensionality and chaotic energy of Meurer’s best work taps into something elusive – something that many working artists never manage to achieve. Her sculptural paintings transform a passive viewing experience into more of a genuine encounter. You don’t just look at the work; you take it in on a visceral level.

If chaos is a palpable presence in Meurer’s art, so too, is a specific type of music.

While her musical tastes are fairly eclectic, Meurer usually paints to the intense, driving sonics of alternative heavy metal. Bands like Alter Bridge, Disturbed, Linkin Park and especially, numetal standard-bearers Korn, are all mainstays of the rotation on her studio playlist.

Meurer gravitates toward bands that don’t hide their feelings of alienation, trauma, fear and vulnerability.

“Lyrically, they’re in pain all the time,” she says of Korn and its frontman and principal songwriter Jonathan Davis. “It doesn’t have to be my pain, but it is definitely pain.”

Meurer acknowledges that the raw textures, abstract smears and fractured, sometimes plaintive imagery that emanates from some of her best paintings are statements unto themselves – and at least peripherally connected to the most prevalent themes in the music she listens to while she works. But she refuses to draw hard and fast lines between her musical influences and her art.

“Whatever music I have on and whatever I’m envisioning in my mind is going to be very chaotic,” she says. “I don’t have a cause or a theme or anything specific I feel like expressing. I come down here to my studio and I paint to the music; it’s really that simple. I turn it up very loud and whatever comes out comes out.”

When asked if she ever paints without music, Meurer answers with a simple, emphatic “no.” And while she may not be able to explain the alchemy that occurs, when, say, a growling guitar riff by Korn’s Brian “Head” Welch spurs a series of brushstrokes on canvas, she’ll be the first to tell you that music and art can’t be separated in her creative process.

Meurer has exhibited in major gallery shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn and sold her paintings to numerous private collectors. She also adapts her original designs to create a variety of merchandise, which can be found on Etsy and other resellers. Her aesthetic translates very effectively to things like sneakers, tote bags, pillows, various articles of clothing, even finely detailed glassware, which she paints on directly. Lately, she’s also been making soap and candles to sell online and at local craft fairs and gift events. (More information is available at joannemeurer.com.)

At this stage of her life, Meurer thinks of herself as a painter first. But she’s actually a quintessential artisan. She’s one of those people who just makes stuff. And when she’s not making stuff, she spends a lot of time thinking about making stuff.

She also owns a bar.

Though its name has changed a few times over the years, West Cork Union Hall, which is around the block from Meurer’s home, has been a neighborhood mainstay for decades. Meurer’s late husband Kevin, a U.S. Navy veteran and former New York City police lieutenant, gave the bar its current name when he bought it after retiring from the NYPD in 2010.

These days, Meurer runs West Cork Union Hall with plenty of help from her sons Kevin Jr. and James.

“We’re in the process of transferring a lot of the management of the bar to Kevin Jr.,” she says.

“If you don’t pass the torch to the younger generation, you’re not going to be able to sustain the place. That would be true of any business, but it’s especially true of a neighborhood bar.”

Meurer and her sons have invested plenty of blood, sweat and tears into West Cork. And it has rewarded them in ways that transcend money.

When asked if she would consider selling the bar (she also owns the building), cashing out and focusing on her art full time, Meurer pauses, shakes her head and answers slowly. “I think we all take a certain amount of peace from being able to socialize with people who thought of my husband as a part of their family,” she answers.

During multiple, extended discussions with Meurer about her creative work, it became clear that she believes chaos is the primary organizing principle in her art – and to some degree, her day-to-day life. Spend a little time with her and her paintings and you’re likely to agree with that assessment.

But take the discussion one step further and consider the concept of “chaotic harmony”: the idea that beauty, meaning and coherence can arise out of the tension between order and disorder. It’s a concept that really seems to resonate

when trying to unpack Meurer’s artistic sensibilities.

Her creative process, the music she listens to while painting, and of course, the work itself, feel like mile markers – signposts for an artist who consistently finds beauty at the intersection of chaos and harmony.