Steve Joy

Steve Joy has both worked as an artist and taught two generations of artists on three continents since his emergence on the London art scene in the early 1980s. Internationally respected and collected, he is considered one of the most eloquent practitioners of art as a vehicle for conveying spirituality and the mysteries of the journey for self-understanding. Joy’s vocabulary is abstraction, a style that, on the surface, might suggest no meaning at all, but in its history, in the work of the great masters of non-objective painting — artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian — abstraction was the most lyrical way of conveying these mysteries.

Joy came to art late, after a career in Great Britain’s Royal Air Force, and was moved to become an artist from his extensive professional travels and his voracious reading. After art school he sought out fellowships and positions teaching art in locations far away from the comforts of the artistic capitals of Europe and the United States, returning to these centers only on occasion. His work has always reflected his influences: other artists, filmmakers, thinkers, spiritual leaders, and physical and cultural landmarks.

His technique has evolved over time from small, rich panels of ambiguous pigment to oil paintings with projecting additions to his more current work on heavy supports carrying wax, gold, or silver leaf, and pure colors rich with symbolism. While he continues to travel extensively and has made paintings in recent years in Asia, Mexico, and Europe, he is currently based out of a loft in the Old Market of Omaha.