Artist's Statement

Seeing the world as artists do — in terms of lines, shapes, values, colors, positive and negative spaces — continues to thrill me, I suppose because I started art lessons middle-aged and midway through an academic career in the social sciences. And it still seems like magic to be able to render objects, scenes, and people in ways that others recognize. But my first exercise in abstract painting hooked me. My artistic intent now is to create paintings that show relations and connections/disconnections between and among color, line, shape, value, etc. with less attention to identifiable objects. That said, my art reflects several not always compatible themes. The academic influence is seen in the linear, almost graphic flavor of paintings that have letters, numbers, and collaged print as subject matter. Other paintings are attempts to capture contrasts, disorder, falling-apart complexity, tensions within and between things. There is considerable interplay, then, between these two directions, the linear and graphic, on the one hand, and the more sub-textual and organic, on the other. The result is considerable diversity in style and subject matter, occasional whimsicality, and more often than not, unplanned configurations.    

 

Artist’s Bio: Joyce Nielsen

 

Since 1980, art instruction from Sally Bartalot (Denver art teacher); Molly Gough (Boulder artist); Bonnie Iris, Jane Wikstrand and others at Foothills Art Center; Jennifer Bobola, Victoria Kwasinski at Park Hill Art Club; Tracy Russell (Art Students League).

 

Workshops with:  Arminta “Skip” Neal; Louise Cadillac; John Salminen, and Julia Jordan at Foothills Art Center; Steve Quiller (Crede Colorado);  Chuck Danford, and Janet Nunn at Park Hill Art Club.

 

Recognition: 

• Foothills Art Center Gift Shop, watercolor entry accepted for January 1996 “In the Tradition of Foothills” show.

• Honorable mention from Boulder Art Association, 1996 Spring Art Show & Sale, for “Iridescence” (watercolor).

• 2nd Place for “Cuisinart Parts” mixed media entry at “On My Own Time,” National Jewish Hospital Employee Art Show, 1998. 

• 2nd place for “In Flight” watercolor entry at 2nd Annual National Jewish & CBCA Art Show, 2000.

• Gateway to Rockies, 2019 juried show

• Lone Tree Arts Center 2019, juried show