As well as excising her floating heads from the contexts of Gotham, Disneyland, Springfield or South Park, Pensato situates her figures in troubling psychological states and indeterminate spaces. The true source of their meaning is concealed, not only by successive sweeps of paint, but beneath the guileless grin of Donald Duck or the Caped Crusader’s eye-less mask. Taking much of her material from her surroundings in her hometown of Brooklyn, New York – from graffitoed walls to hand-scrawled shop signs – Pensato paints almost exclusively in shop-bought black and white enamel, while also employing charcoal and pastel for smaller-scale drawings. Recently Pensato has begun painting oversized murals, often taking weeks to complete, while there are also occasional leaps away from the monochrome world she generally inhabits into sporadic bursts of colour, especially silver and gold. Her first major exhibition in London is scheduled for March 2014 and Lisson Gallery is representing Joyce Pensato in collaboration with Petzel Gallery, New York