Artist Biography

Born in a small town in the Midwest, Joy always loved doing photography and took her first picture in grade school. In her 20’s she experimented with Polaroid cameras and images, drawing on the picture before it was fully developed, creating a strange, abstract image. Soon after, she discovered 35mm film and eventually moved to Montana where she got a job at the local newspaper’s photography lab. While there, she was influenced by the photo-journalists and the way they worked with everyday events. She learned to develop and print film and began doing serious photography, and was in several one-woman and juried shows.

She soon moved to Seattle and continued to do photography work, mostly portraiture. She looked at art whenever she could, continuing her informal art education. She sometimes worked with paper and created collage and assemblage. Her work was shown in exhibitions and juried shows.

Joy has a strong need to find the composition within the frame, which can be revealed in an unusual way. Her work is about the street, and the magical pictures that present themselves to her. The work is also about the domestic – the interior of home, about the every day objects that may be common but yet are extraordinary when seen in a certain light. 

Joy’s art education has been informal, although she doesn’t consider herself an outsider artist. She has been inspired by street photographers, in particular Lange, Friedlander, Evans, Frank and Arbus. Another influence on her work were her studies in psychoanalysis. As a therapist, she studied psychoanalytic theory for many years. She learned that beliefs and interpretations are always subjective; this has deeply influenced her artistic philosophy and how she thinks about what it is that she does creatively.

CONTACT NAN JOY: info@nanjoyphotography.com