Artist Statement

My work emerges from a sustained engagement with the natural world where material and meaning are inseparable. Growing up on a farm in rural Virginia, creating worlds within ourselves was how we had fun as children. We lived along a river with an old grist mill below. My father restored it so my mother, an artist, could have a studio overlooking the waterfall. We lived in the miller's cottage above on the hill. My mother encouraged creativity as a way of seeing, and my father, who loved music, shaped my understanding of art as something meant to be shared. He loved to have his friends drive him around the neighborhood with his piano on the back of his pickup truck and entertain the neighborhood. He instilled a strong sense of community within me.

A transformative childhood experience—stepping into a hornet’s nest and being severely stung—remains central to my practice. In that moment, I became aware of the power and complexity of the natural world, sparking a lasting fascination with ecological systems: plant communication, mycelial networks, nest architecture, and pollinator migrations. My work approaches the earth as a living, sacred entity rather than a passive landscape.

Today I live and work on a protected estuary, where my practice begins. I collect grasses, stems, feathers, and other organic materials directly from the landscape, incorporating them into my work so that each piece becomes not a representation of nature, but an extension of it. Working across painting, printmaking and mixed media, I often use rice paper, natural pigments, and found materials that carry memory and lineage.

My process is intuitive and guided by attunement to nature. I don’t begin with a fixed image—the work unfolds through listening. As a sound healer, I am deeply aware of vibration and energy, and I approach my work as something to be felt as much as it is seen.

My art is an invitation—to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with the mysteries of nature and the cosmos in a way that is both accessible and uplifting.

STEPHANIE JOYCE

STEPHANIE JOYCE