Emily Joyce / Visual Art

Emily Joyce was born in 1976 in Illinois and was educated at the Glasgow School of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA 1998). Joyce’s paintings investigate the resonance of mathematics in the natural world and art history through pattern based and rhythmic abstraction. Her paintings often have a spark humor and playfulness because she adds a purposefully awkward gesture or anomaly to the composition that softens the rigorous geometry that is the foundation of her work. In addition to painting Joyce creates visual poems combining images and text and she occasionally performs stand-up comedy as Piera Nucca da Montefeltro, a world-weary 15th century Italian comedian.

Joyce has exhibited work and participated in projects at The Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver), Human Resources (Los Angeles), David B. Smith Gallery (Denver), Inman Gallery (Houston), The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley), The Tang Teaching Museum (Saratoga Springs), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Machine Project (Los Angeles), and Hauser and Wirth (Los Angeles). Her book of visual poetry “A Cigar Caught In The Lilies” was published by Hesse Press (Los Angeles) in April of 2019.