Joseph Santarpia

Art Educator

Patchogue Medford School District

Joseph Santarpia visualizes the body as a medical specimen and machine by engaging the creative capacities of material. In doing so, his work captures a stark contrast of darkness and luminosity, creating a sense of visceral interiority, expansive space, machinic processes, and the medical aesthetics of sterility and anatomy. The rigidity of machines and medical aesthetics alike combine in Santarpia’s practice to create imagined interiors, exteriors, and indexes of bodily experience. His multimedia studio practice includes painting, cyanotype, collage, video, and installation. Santarpia's work has been exhibited internationally in galleries and festivals including: PH21 Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; The Room Projects, Paris, France; The Brooklyn Waterfront Artist Coalition, Brooklyn, NY; Small Green Door, East Los Angeles, CA; FIG Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain; and more. Santarpia received his MFA from Stony Brook University in 2020 and is the recipient of awards including The Goldberger Fellowship and the Dorothy L. Memorial Purchase Prize. 

As an art educator at the secondary and university level, Santarpia is keen on fostering open, warm, welcoming spaces for his students to creatively engage in a studio environment; one of mutual respect, experimentation, risk taking, and appreciation for the craft.