“The initial impetus for painting came to me through exposure to the works of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. To this day, I remain committed to the idea of spiritual abstraction and to the development of painting and its history form the 15th century to today. Influences from the past would include Duccio, Giotto, Valasquez and Matisse.
I have lived all over the world including many years in the Far East. My works include the somewhat romantic idea that the exotic and mysterious places can be contained within painting–giving us all the taste of the unknown without having to make the journey ourselves.
In recent years I have made paintings that I hope contain the spirit of places as diverse as a private cemetery in Madagascar, the grand 19th century hotels and palaces of India and the Far East, a Mayan temple in the southern Yucatan, or the remote deserts of North Africa, to name just a few. My most recent paintings are an attempt to deal with certain codes of ethics, aesthetics and spirituality that runs throughout the history of humanity. This includes the warrior code of the Samurai, the tradition of Russian Orthodox Icon Painting, and finally homage to the sublime, ethereal portraits of Leonardo da Vinci.
For nearly three decades, Steve Joy has exhibited his exotically evocative art around the world. His work is now represented in galleries and museums in Norway, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Japan and the United States, including New York, Omaha and Lincoln. A retrospective of his work is slated with the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha.
Studied:
1975-1976, Attended Cardiff College of Art
1979, Graduated from Exeter College of Art, Devon, England, with Bachelor of Fine Arts
1980, Graduated from Chelsea College of Art with Master of Fine Arts in Painting
Museums:
British Council Arts, London, International, United Kingdom
Japan Foundation, Tokyo, International, Japan
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona , Barcelona, International, Spain
New York Public Library, New York, New York
Exhibition Record (Museums, Institutions and Awards):
2001, London Contemporary Arts (Paperworks)
2000, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
1998, Sioux City Art Center, “Working Space,” Sioux City, Iowa
1997, Bergen City Art Museum, Norway
1997, Haugesand City Art Museum, Norway
1996, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, Virginia
1993, Kunsthaus (Museum of Art), Zurich, Switzerland
Born in Plymouth, England, in 1952, Joy served in the Royal Air Force from 1968 to 1975, visiting museums and cultural sights on his furloughs. In 1975, he enrolled in art school in London. His earliest works — oil paintings on canvas, some with three-dimensional projections — reflected his desire to escape from the mundane by continued travel. Later, inspired by American Abstract Expressionists such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, Joy sought to break away from the formal aspects of contemporary British painting. Realizing the inherent limitations of abstraction, however, Joy noted, “The only way abstract painting had any chance of survival was to take on the great issues of history.” By a combination of travel and painting, he has made a career of this personal journey. He is committed to the idea of spiritual abstraction and the development of painting and its history from the 15th century to today. Influences from the past include the art of Duccio, Giotto, Velasquez, and Matisse.
Joy has studied and worked on three continents, in Japan, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Greece, Spain, and now, more permanently, in Omaha, where he first arrived as the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts’ curator in 1998 and where he is one of a group of artists with international reputations working in Omaha.
Joy’s technique and his choice of media have evolved over the years. He creates using rich, saturated colors, squares of gold and silver leaf, and wax. His paintings also reflect a vivid sense of geometry and proportion. Several are punctuated with words as part of the composition. The totality reflects Joy’s fascination with exotic cultures, religions, and the great religious works of the history of art, in particular Orthodox icon painting and western European medieval works.