Joseph Neal Lofton’s passion for music—especially jazz—is reflected not just in his subject matter, but also his style. In an artist statement, he examined his work, saying “my execution is flat and frontal and falls somewhere in the middle ground between objective and non-objective concerns. It is not my mission to emulate realistic images, but rather to use objects as a point of reference in creating a composition of forceful forms and colors.”
Lofton was born in Florida, probably in Orlando, in 1923. In his 20’s, he moved to New York City where he took classes at the Art Students League between 1948 and 1954 and later, 1971/1972 at the School of the Visual Arts. After a career working in government, Lofton retired and later moved to Richmond, Virginia, where he opened Le Petit Gallery. In the late 1980s he returned to his roots and settled in south Florida, near Ormond Beach. In 1991 he moved to Burgos, a development outside of Cuernavaca, Mexico. There he built a studio and gallery for his work and spent twenty-five years exploring parallels between African and Mexican art.
The expressive use of color is consistent in Lofton’s work, from his early academic Realist phase while a student, to an experimental Abstract Expressionist period in the 1950s and 1960s. He developed a technique in which he took pieces of painted canvas, cut them, and then pasted them onto another canvas. He believed “painting is a means of communication, and if you don’t manage to communicate something one way, you have to try another.”