This series comprises remaining available work I created from 2000 through 2011. During this period I passed through a variety of stages as I evolved spiritually and artistically. Over the course of a decade I explored the mystery of betrayal and disappointment and how it opens us to a more authentic life, the malleable nature of reality and how it shifts with our thoughts and the unlimited expanse of the ocean, both the physical and emotional.
Much of the work is intense and most of it is extremely personal, reflecting what I was going through in my own life at the time of creation. I don't take commissions from this series, but prints may be available if something here or in the Sold Archive interests you.
This work represents the evolution of my discovering my singular artistic voice in the Consciousness Series.
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This painting was inspired by the love of a devoted but flawed (aren't we all) friend. It's from a series entitled, Life's Not Perfect (but it's beautiful).
It's a vibrant, geometric painting with multiple layers of oil paint and a textured target like shape in the upper center. Painted on primed canvas over 2" hand built stretchers, signed lower right
The series addresses the idea that it takes a lot of courage to walk through a new doorway in life. If you wait for the perfect moment, job, relationship or the perfect time to do what you love, it will never come. You have to follow your heart and seize the opportunities that are meaningful. When we pursue what is meaningful we create beauty. Life can be frustrating and disappointing sometimes, it can also be incredibly beautiful and poignant.
Inspired by a deep and rich internal landscape along with a fascination for the Aurora Borealis and all things magical in Alaska. Dripping and overlapping blues, greens and purple create a mysterious world where it's not clear where the sky, earth and sea begin and end. This is a recurring theme in my work and becomes more pronounced in my Consciousness Series.
This painting is part of a series I completed as a meditation on the nature of reality and its malleable and fluid quality. Thoughts shape reality. When we change, or we change our thoughts, our reality changes. Sometimes our perception of reality and past events will even change over time. The fluid, dripping paint and layering of color speak to the liquid nature of reality.
The Mystery of Betrayal explores the idea that sometimes when we feel betrayed by a person or circumstances we are able to come to a higher clearer understanding of ourselves, what our path is, our true value. In some sense "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" that overcoming criticism or abuse and persevering can enlighten our senses.
Oil and metal leaf on canvas, signed lower right side.
This painting is part of a series I completed as a meditation on the nature of reality and its malleable and fluid quality. Thoughts shape reality. When we change, or we change our thoughts, our reality changes. Sometimes our perception of reality and past events will even change over time. The fluid, dripping paint and layering of color speak to the liquid nature of reality.
In early 2006 I quit my job and took some time off to paint. Right about the same time, I met a new man who I thought would be important in my life. Having had the experience of being married and the pain of divorce, it took a huge leap of faith to give myself over to the possibility of new love and also of possibly being hurt again.
Late one night, my work took a totally different turn as I was thinking about this new relationship. I painted the painting that started this series, Doorway. This is what I saw this new relationship as -- a doorway. It takes a lot of courage to walk through a new doorway. I realized in that moment if you wait for the perfect moment, perfect job, perfect relationship, perfect time to do what you love -- It will never come.
Part of a series entitled “Life’s Not Perfect But It’s Beautiful”, it explores the idea that even though life can be so thoroughly frustrating and disappointing sometimes, it can also be incredibly beautiful and poignant.This concept goes back to a thought that has informed my work from the beginning -- an experience may be painful but it can always be used for spiritual growth. Using experiences in this way is alchemical and transforms even an ugly experience into something of beauty. My paintings represent this alchemy.
An exploration of how some of us cling to pain and our past experiences which creates immovable forms in our subconscious. I wrote the poem below at the same time I completed this work.
Dark mountain
in the canyon of your heart
Solid and hard
it breaks you apart
Dark mountain
rising up craggy and moist
from the valley of your soul
solid rock that steals choice
Dark mountain
wall of pain
keeping you broken
as you remember again and again
Dark mountain
shadows the landscape of your mind
release resistance
allow mutable time
© Jill Joy 2010
Part of a series I completed as a meditation on the nature of reality and its malleable and fluid quality. Thoughts shape reality. When we change, or we change our thoughts, our reality changes. Sometimes our perception of reality and past events will even change over time. The fluid, dripping paint and layering of color speak to the liquid nature of reality.
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This painting reflects the experience of being a spiritual being in the midst of a temporal and sometimes painful reality. It incorporates a modified Sanskrit mantra, the original is "I Am That I Am". I changed it to "I Am Love". This chant is written in gold oil pen across blank primed canvas, overlaid with an intense experience of emotional disappointment and a recognition of the limitations we face as human beings. This work is recognition of the fact that we are in the world, but not of the world.
This painting transcends two bodies of work from my Journey Series - it's part of my Emotion series but also the Reality series which explores the malleable nature of reality and how we perceive events based on our thoughts.
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This painting was part of a short exploration into a series called Windows. Widows into the soul, into the mind, into something beyond the visible world.
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This painting was part of a short exploration into a series called Windows. Widows into the soul, into the mind, into something beyond the visible world.
Most specifically it's a painting about my relationship with my ex-husband who I count as one of my permanent supporters in this crazy world. We're not married anymore but we still support each other. It's complicated.
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Geometric interplay of surreal forms expressing a changing consciousness grappling with new awareness and letting go of old ideas.
Part of the Windows series.
Oil on canvas signed lower right.
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This work was an extension of the Windows Series...taking it a step beyond and into new real which eventually led to my Consciousness Series. Again it tapped the idea that if we can look through this visible, transient world, what we see beyond is something more real, though invisible, and unchanging, a spiritual reality that exists always beneath the surface or just beyond this one.
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Black Ice
Beneath my calms skies there’s black ice in my soul
A slick dark patch that feels life times old
A shallow ice layer deadly in its way
Tread carefully across, it’s where the ego slays
Slick and dark, it’s pain that runs deep
When I’m with you sometimes, up it creeps
It’s the pain of losing what was dearest to me
Of wanting a love so badly I could not see
It’s cold and it’s dark, it’s there all the time
It’s deep and it’s narrow, beyond reason or rhyme
These patches of black ice frozen deep in my heart
Don’t even know they’re there ‘til love has a chance to start
But once they surface, they make themselves known
They come up fast ‘cuz I love you harder, but they are all my own
So as you walk with me if the path begins to feel slick
That’s my black ice. the chill comes on quick
I know you’re here now to help melt it down
As it turns into tears, the pain begins to drown
It’s cold and it’s dark, it’s there all the time
It’s deep and it’s narrow, beyond reason or rhyme
So don’t be surprised if we hit a slick or two
The ice we are on is glacial, it’s ancient electric blue
I think you’ll be around though for as long as it takes
To melt those hidden patches into clear glacial lakes
Once this ice is gone will you be gone too?
Or will you float in the sun with me, skin chilled by liquid blue?
You’ll do what you do, you’ll go or you’ll stay
Maybe when I’m liquid, I’ll send you away
But while you are here I like you just fine
If you can manage a slick patch from time to time
That ice is in me whether I’m with you or another
Running from you won’t melt it, so I won’t even bother
It’s cold and it’s dark, it’s there all the time
It’s deep and it’s narrow, beyond reason or rhyme
The only thing I can fathom that will make it go
Is standing in the light, knowing what is truly so
So let’s forget about the black ice forget about it for a while
Let me stand in the heat of you and your love without guile.
© Jill Joy August 2010
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This painting was inspired by a trip to Alaska where I had the good fortune to take a helicopter ride over a glacier. It's not actually a statement about global warming, although that is a problem. The glacier here is metaphorical, those ice formations that exist in the soul, things like guilt and self doubt. It's a painting about positive, spiritual evolution. The poem below goes with it.
the glaciers are melting in my soul
plates of ice a million years old
mountains of guilt buried so deep
i heard whispers of their movement
in deepest darkest sleep
there’s no stopping them now they are on the move
the ice floes are running change is coming
self loathing and doubt are melting away
ceaseless dripping holds me sway
the ice is melting inches everyday
my personal planet is turning into a bay
there’s no stopping them now they are on the move
the ice floes are running change is coming
when these guilt glaciers are gone
i’ll no longer have an ego saying i’m wrong
my body may then cease to exist
my mind will merge with pure divine bliss
there’s no stopping them now they are on the move
the ice floes are running change is coming
so please don’t feel sorry for me
that my personal planet will no longer be
aside from a thought form it doesn’t exist
its disappearance i shall not resist
Created with impasto techniques and acrylic paint as well as crystal granules and graphite powder in acrylic medium. There is a lot of texture in this painting as well as dripping paint. One gets a sense of multiple layers and movement when viewing this work.
This painting is from The Mystery Series which addressed the idea that events sometimes occur in our lives that may appear negative or difficult at first, yet in retrospect, they bring us gifts we could not have imagined.
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Self Love, can we actually ever get enough of it? The ironic thing about self love is that one feels rigorously driven to develop it when the conditions of one's childhood were not loving. Either that or you turn to addiction. I decided to cultivate the former.
Created with impasto techniques and acrylic paint as well as crystal granules and graphite powder in acrylic medium and graphite pencil. There are words written in the painting. There is a lot of texture in this painting as well as dripping paint.
This painting is from The Mystery Series which addressed the idea that events sometimes occur in our lives that may appear negative or difficult at first, yet in retrospect, they bring us gifts we could not have imagined.
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The Rain Comes to My Soul is a soothing abstract painting. It is about the ending of my marriage to a man who remains one of my dearest friends.
It was a painful time and yet all the while I could sense the change was good for my soul. What had become a desiccated structure, our marriage, was disintegrating and something new was growing into possibility. In retrospect I now know it was one more step in committing myself to my art. We are both happy now and have more fulfilling lives than we had at the time of our split.
This painting was created with impasto techniques and acrylic paint as well as crystal granules in acrylic medium. There is a lot of texture and iridescent as well as flat paint so the painting shifts and moves as the light changes giving the impression of motion and change.
It's from a series I did entitled The Mystery which addressed the idea that events sometimes occur in our lives that may appear negative or difficult at first, yet in retrospect, they bring us gifts we could not have imagined.
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As the title suggests, this work is an exploration of the nature of Divine Love. It's a multi-layered mixed media painting. The first layer is comprised of mystical symbols from various cultures that communicate some aspect of divinity or infinity, sculpted in relief using plaster and paper fiber.
I incorporated a Sanskrit chant I learned in my early 20's living in a yoga ashram, "So Hum Shiva Hum", which translates loosely to “I am that”. You can see this written in the upper right around an infinity symbol in both English and Sanskrit in gold oil pen. This chant is used in contemplation meditation is an opportunity to focus "thinking mind" on the mystery of being.
On left the, I've included one of my own poems about the nature of divinity:
I am all there is
I am all that is
I am the breath in your body
I am the light and the dark
I am the night and the day
I am the sun and the moon
I am your pain and your joy
And the space in between
I am everything right and everything wrong
I painted Divine Love using acrylic paint, oil pen, mica crystals, graphite powder, plaster and paper fiber on primed canvas stretched over 2" hand built stretchers, signed lower right.
This painting is from a series originally entitled Love and Other Words, a small group of large paintings I completed in 2005 and 2006 that incorporate words or poetry and explore the nature of love.
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Love (human love as opposed to Divine Love) is a crazy, messy thing. I began this painting in New York around 2002 and finished it a couple of years later in 2005 shortly after re-locating to San Diego after my husband and I separated.
My experience of Love, true and lasting Love, is that it's a journey. This was true of my relationship with my former husband (now friend) and was also true of the second great love of my life which was a twisting, turning journey of 12 years.
I believe to truly love there has to be a purification of the ego (at least in my case there was). First I needed to really learn to love myself and meet most of my own needs and then I needed to learn that I have to let people be who they are - it's the greatest gift of love - acceptance. I’m still learning that.
This painting is from a series entitled Love and Other Words, a small group of large paintings I completed in 2005 and 2006 that explore the idea of love and incorporate words or poetry. It is thickly painted in oil and highly textured. The word “Love” is built up in relief on the canvas. Painted on primed canvas and stretched on hand built 2” stretchers, signed lower right.