I first met the painter Joe Noderer on Instagram -then, after a couple of years, on a Google Meets for this interview. Social media creates an environment where finding interesting artists is easier yet also may have you wading through a massive amount of less interesting art. Joe is one of the most interesting landscape painters of our day. An idiosyncratic painterly language, links to artists working long before him, and work untrammeled by judgement or environmental despair are key to this distinguished painter. Read on to find out how Joe came to practice painting near Pittsburgh, PA, how he forged his career early on, learn about his influences and what concerns him today.

In your later, shall I say "bearded portraits,” I draw visual connections ranging from Ole Peter Hansen Balling's John Brown to Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son. What do you think about all that?

You’re not reaching too far with “Saturn Devouring his Son.” That’s definitely an image I saw when I was a teenager. When we see that painting, now, there’s an element of goofiness to it. But there’s also a blunt, downplayed, but in that way believable, violence to it with the mutilated corpse he’s holding. I’ve always been drawn to that kind of grizzliness.