Joe Andoe, who is part Cherokee, was born on December 5, 1955 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although initially a student of agricultural business, he went on to receive an MA in Fine Art from the University of Oklahoma in 1981. In 1982, Andoe moved to New York City and captivated the arts scene. Andoe is best known for his muted depictions of landscapes, solitary objects, and portraits of humans and animals. Often compared to the photographic documentation of teenage life in Tulsa by Larry Clark, Andoe’s universe has emerged as one great depiction of the American spirit and its iconography. He does not satirize the Old West--he is simply fascinated by it. His works can be seen as a social critique of a robust America on the brink of disappearance. Andoe, a key figure of photo-based realism, uses found images from the internet that he then transfers freehand onto his canvas. This method eludes nature worship or other forms of transcendence. Andoe then applies a thick layer of oil paint to his surfaces, incising the outlines of his subjects, and then wiping away the wet paint to reveal the coarsely textured canvas underneath. He typically works in sepia-toned monochrome, imbuing his work with the vintage photograph tone. Andoe has an extensive exhibition record and his work lives in permanent collections at the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, California; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., among others.