Joy Broom

Statement

I’m interested in layering, in terms of images, materials and concept. Elements of nature have always been present in my work: seeds, cells, circulatory systems, trees, organs, insects. The work combines for me the beauty of biology with the symmetrical order of icons and altarpieces. I use purified beeswax as a skin, to bind, protect, and vaguely ritualize.  I like that my studio smells like church.

I’ve evolved in my work from using specific personal symbols representing my family to combining my biological drawings with actual bits and pieces of old family letters and photographs. This exploration has become an expanded personal biology.

It is my intent that this work has wider historical implications, going beyond the strictly personal to reflect a broader natural universe. These are all our histories.

Biography

Joy Broom’s work has been featured in dozens of exhibitions at a wide range of venues. Select Solo Exhibitions include the deYoung Museum Kimball Gallery as Artist-in-Residence; the inaugural StartUpArt Fair and StartUp Small Works Art Fair; Stanford Art Spaces; Oakland’s The Rollup Project and Studio Quercus; A440 Gallery and 555 California/Bank of America, San Francisco. She also had solo shows at Linda Hodges and Mia Galleries in Seattle, and The Carnegie Art Center, and Amo Art, Walla Walla and Waitsburg, Wn.

Select Group Exhibitions include the the deYoung Open; Triton Museum; Arts Benicia; Site: Brooklyn, NY; Shoebox Projects, LA; SFMOMA Artists Gallery; Transmission and Live Worms Galleries, San Francisco; the Triton Museum, the Bolinas Museum; Off the Preserve! In Napa; the Berkeley Art Center (Artist of the Month), five themed shows at the Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek; Sonoma Museum of Visual Arts; Seager Gray’s Art of the Book, Mill Valley; Jennifer Perlmutter Gallery, Lafayette.

Broom has been a recipient of the WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowship for Visual Artists for Works on Paper; has been a featured artist on The Studio Work blog. Recently her work was published in the book Artists of the Bay Area by Jen Tough Gallery, Santa Fe; Photo Trouvee Magazine, and Humana Obscura. A wall of shaped multiples of oil paint and chewing gum on wood was hung in the original contemporary Bay Area Collection of the deRosa Preserve complex in Napa. Her work is represented in numerous private and artists’ collections.