The Artist Purges Her Wound #art

I just got back from 10 days in Europe where I was immersed in the work of French American Artist, Niki de Saint Phalle. A friend of mine works for her foundation and among other places we went to the opening of a museum retrospective of Niki's work at the Grand Palais in Paris and then her Tarot Sculpture Garden in Tuscany. 

Niki de Saint Phalle

I can honestly say I am inspired by Nikki. Somewhat by the late work that made her famous (below), but more so by her early work,  the process of her life, the progression of her art and the sacrifices she made. Her work crosses the trajectory from the purging of the darkness of early wounds to the reaching for something universal and joyful in her well known “Nana” sculptures.

Niki de Saint Phalle - Les Trois Muses

The photo (below) of one of Nikki's early "Brides" is hard to appreciate if you don’t see it in person. It’s a collage of plastic spiders, babies and other disturbing things. A dark commentary on the limitations imposed on women when forced to take up the role of wife and mother by conditioning rather than choice.

Niki de Saint Phalle - La Femme Mariee

Niki was molested by her father as a child and much of her early work is purging the anger and sadness and sense of betrayal this caused her as well as divesting herself of society’s expectations of her as a woman to be a wife and mother. Some of her earliest work, the Shooting Paintings, express outrage against injustice of all sorts especially against the innocent.

Niki de Saint Phalle - Fusil

Niki de Saint Phalle-1961 - Portrait-of-my-lover-rechts-videostill-daddy-b

Why am I so taken with this woman’s story? It is the parallels that validate my own path as an artist that make is so powerful for me. I too have seen my work move from the dark, violent and personal to something purer, simpler and more universal or illuminated.

Jill Joy - Love & Betrayal - mixed media on canvas - 72x48 - 2006

 I too have struck on simpler, purified work that seems to have more commercial viability.

Jill Joy - Gathering Storm - oil on canvas - 48x72x2.5" - 2014

I too knew and released the confines of traditional marriage and family. I too have had an on again, off again lover and muse who I simply can not shake despite the best efforts and advice of my friends. I too have sacrificed my health and wealth to create art.

But perhaps more than all of that was my appreciation for her early work and how it caused me to appreciate mine. What I saw in the retrospective at Le Grand Palais was not only the accomplishment and appeal of the later work, but how much the humanity and the personal struggle of Niki’s early work spoke to me. It was like watching the progression from the human to the divine condition. It was the human condition that spoke to me, stayed with me, haunted me. And it seemed much of that early work is still in the possession of her foundation. Niki, perhaps more than I up to this point, understood its value and spent the money and effort to warehouse it, never discarding or destroying it.

Jill Joy - Selfie @ Nicki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden in Tuscany, Italy

Meanwhile I have been balking at storing my early work because it’s too confusing to market to art industry people as I try to make a name and a living for myself. It has felt like a weight on me, a burden, not just because of the physical space it takes up but because it represents old, now dead, released painful emotional experience. Stacks and stacks of canvases that chronicle my personal pain and grief as I released my marriage, my emotionally abusive relationships with my parents and of course my on again off again relationship which triggers all of that old stuff every time it ends.

Learning about Niki and her work made me appreciate myself. She validated my struggles as an artist and confirmed the courage it takes to give everything else up. She caused me to appreciate the journey from personal pain to universal illumination. Even at the end the beginning is present. We hold its hand as we walk into the light.

Jill Joy - Selfie @ Nicki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden in Tuscany, Italy

Intertwined

So it's been awhile since I've posted. I had the grand opening for my studio in June and another open studio in August after that featuring new work from the Consciousness Series. I've also been busy painting. Below is a new work, Intertwined, hot off the brush, that has not yet been publically displayed.

Jill Joy - Intertwined - oil on canvas - 20x40" - 2014

It is an exploration of a relationship in transition. Two souls moving in time and space. It made me realize that my human drama is really quite small against the backdrop of universal consciousness. Almost like a disturbance, but not quite. There is something honorable and just about the human struggle for peace and happiness.

Emotion, consciousness and illumination

The best works of art express the complexity of being human with an eye to transcendence. For me, making art is a spiritual practice and I approach the canvas with an eye to evolving my soul. I currently work in three distinct styles which represent the triad of the human condition: Mind, Body, Spirit. In developing these series, I’ve discovered the important interplay between emotions, consciousness awareness and enlightenment.

Jill Joy - Death Comes and Recedes - oil on canvas - 48x72"

The Emotion Series addresses emotions as energy. Energy which must be felt and allowed to move through us in order for us to learn from them and eventually transcend them. These paintings are intense, active and filled with a sense of energy in motion. They relate to the human struggle: dealing with loss, pain, joy, change and aspiration.

The Consciousness Series speaks to the awareness of oneself as an individual developing and evolving within a field of universal consciousness or Love. In this work, this universal field and our presence within it are represented by a surreal landscape - the sky or ocean - or both. The peaceful spacious portions of the canvas evoking the dome of unbroken universal awareness.

Jill Joy - Solace - oil on canvas, 48x60"

The Illumination Series represents the process of enlightenment; the awareness and experience of an eternal field of light that exists beyond the temporal human experience and the awareness of of ourselves as separate. I have experienced it as a type of grace as light enters my mind almost unbidden after years of confronting my fears and the hard work clearing myself of negative thoughts and old conditioning.

Jill Joy - Emanation - oil on canvas - 48x60

There is an ongoing interplay in my life between these three states: experiencing and clearing emotional energy to achieve a more profound and peaceful state of consciousness and ultimately a sense of the presence of light in my mind and the elimination of the boundary between the inner and outer world. Some of my collectors have referred to these paintings as maps for spiritual development. In living with them, the process of evolving as a human being, as a soul, is communicated and enhanced.

I work in oil on canvas for two reasons. For the Emotion paintings, the materiality of oil, the thickness, the texture one can achieve helps me communicate the passion and drama of the emotional process. In Consciousness and Illumination, I’ve found, through using certain mediums, I can produce a luminous quality that uplifts the soul when viewing the work. Oil allows me to create delicate surfaces that change with the light reflecting the subtle nature of being in balance with something greater than myself.