As a sculptor, I work with material and space. Mesh, my primary material, is often layered, activating nanospace, the near-invisible gaps between strands, too small to see as form, yet central to how light and color behave. Light passes through that space and becomes part of the piece itself—not represented, as in a painting, but physically present—scattering and shifting as it mixes with the colors of the layers beneath, so the blend keeps changing.
I'm drawn to mesh because that blend is never stable, and because the material holds a contradiction: ethereal and translucent, yet strong enough to stand on its own, or to give canvas the structure to hold a shape. Layered, that translucency allows colors to blend as well as to fracture into moiré patterns I can partially direct—through strand count, surface color, shape and orientation.
This layered, translucent work is the core of my practice. That same fascination with mesh has also led me to laminate it into sculptural forms, or to work with it alone, free of canvas entirely—extending the material's possibilities beyond light and color into structure and form.
Each work begins with an idea but evolves as I listen to the voice that arises from the blending of light, space, technique and materials. I hope the work pulls the viewer into that same curiosity: closer looking that reveals just how much the near-invisible can shape what's seen.
Joan Konkel is a Washington, D.C.–based artist whose work explores how material, light, and space are perceived. Working across painting and sculpture, she constructs layered, light-responsive surfaces that shift with the viewer’s position, producing subtle instabilities of form and color.
Originally trained as a sculptor (MFA, George Washington University), Konkel’s early practice extended into experimental fashion, incorporating metal into wearable garments. This body of work received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and was later presented at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., where it was recognized with the Anni Albers Designer Award.
Over the past two decades, Konkel has focused on a hybrid practice that merges painting and sculpture, developing a visual language informed by Constructivism, Op Art, and the Light and Space movement. Through moiré patterns, transparency, and spatial interference, her work engages perceptual ambiguity, destabilizing fixed readings and inviting active, investigative viewing.
Konkel’s work has been exhibited widely across the United States and in U.S. ambassadorial residences in France and Albania. It is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Art – DeLand, the Polk Museum of Art at Florida Southern College, and the Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples, as well as in private and corporate collections in the United States and internationally.