Joie Villeneuve
“I’ve been working on merging my studio work with painting en Plein air. … I take notes, make sketches, paint waves and willows, log experiences, infuse the paper or panel with dirt and seawater, breathe in the energy, make rubbings, and collect samples. In the studio, I exhale. I put everything together to capture a moment … a moment of being.”
Born in Minnesota, USA, Joie earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design before spending a decade in New Mexico, where the desert’s light deeply influenced her artistic sensibility. In 2008, she relocated to Perth, Western Australia, where she continues her creative practice from a studio in Mandurah. Over her thirty-plus-year career, she has developed an exploratory, symbol-rich visual language that connects the external environment with inner consciousness, drawing on natural elements as both inspiration and metaphor.
Joie’s dynamic process involves layering up to ten coats of paint and mixed media on wooden panels—interspersed with techniques like scratching, sanding, collage, transfers, and printmaking—to create deeply textured, resonant surfaces. Her work often evokes the serenity and power of the ocean, embedding symbols such as boats, buoys, horizon lines, and the subtle pink glow of sunset into her visual narrative. Through her multi-disciplinary approach, she crafts immersive pieces that explore transformation, inner peace, memory, and the poetic interplay between human experience and the natural world.
