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Barbara Joyce  

visual artist, The Dutch Antilles



Barbara was born in the U.S.A. in 1917 and has lived in the Caribbean for over 30 years.
She worked for many years as an actress. In 1984 she started serious work with collage and later with paint. She has exhibited her art on a regular basis since 1985 and many of her paintings relate to Bahá´í themes.

For former actress Barbara Joyce, art is the stage of the mind. It’s an intuitive process: an act of discovery and surprise that sometimes offers curious clues into the human psyche. As a starting point, Joyce sometimes likes to flirt with the legacies of legendary artists, such as in her collage After Magritte. Other works have paid homage to artists like Picasso and Chagall. Aside from this theme, her subject matter Is not pre-meditated,and she allows this to evolve as she adds the collage elements.

In choosing the elements for a piece, Joyce intentionally juxtaposes different styles, color schemes and media. Each incongruous collection of objects takes on a dream-like quality, much like the disjointed events and images that occupy your sleeping hours. When she completes a work, Joyce laminates it to protect the piece.

Now based in the Dutch Antilles, Joyce acted on Broadway and in television soaps -including the soap opera As the World Turns -before turning to the visual arts 10 years ago, when she began her informal study with the collagist Romare Beardon.
I did collage for 5 years -quite successfully but never could paint. One day during the Fast I read in the Fast prayers about all the special energies that exist at this time -and I got up and started to paint! -This was 1990 and I’ve been painting ever since!! I don’t think painting should be either illustration or propaganda. It should reach the viewer subliminally. Heart to heart -or through the collective consciousness.

(letter to Kathleen Hite Babb, 1996)

Excerpts from Arts Dialogue, June 1997, page 11.

The Dream, painting, 22 x 40 inches,
by Barbara Joyce.

Arts Dialogue, Dintel 20, NL 7333 MC, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands
email: bafa@bahai-library.com