ARTWEEK 2002, DEBRA KOPPMAN
Accompanied by poetry and story-telling, the work explores the theme of freedom,
embodied in the variety of materials used, and envisioned in the content of
the images...Interesting here is the idea of spirit, and the concept of art
as a means toward making that spirit visible and tangible in the physical world...connecting
to the work of Native peoples, for whom artmaking and the world of spirit are
inseparable...
FRESNO BEE 2000, SHIRLEY ARMSTRONG
Joy Johnson hopes to inspire gallery visitors to look within. Artist Joy Johnson
lingered in the outdoor sanctuary in Chimayo, N.M., crafting handmade crosses.
One after another, she set them among the trees and alongside other crosses
of the many pilgrims who consider El Sanctuario de Chimayo a holy, healing place.
The experience, a step on what Johnson calls her "spiritual journey," was so
moving it was the impetus for two years of work on an exhibit of symbolic imagery...
an installation for the new millennium; 60 pieces of wood-constructed sculptures;
crosses, ladders, "Lares and Penates", (Latin for sacred objects) and "Healing
Heart," a 12' x 8' x 12' chapel ...inviting viewers to walk through a wall of
hanging chimes.
A LEADERSHIP FRESNO CAMPAIGN IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE FRESNO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
AND THE FRESNO BEE 2000
Joy Johnson tries to enlighten, to explore the journey of the spirit, to feed
the soul, which is what makes her art, and her place in the art world, unique.
She calls herself a "colorist, constructivist and expressionist with a feminine
and feminist orientation." But the beauty of her work isn't tied to any descriptions.
All one has to do is see the rapture on a child's face as he or she experiences
the color, movement, the sheer feelings of joy to know this artist was aptly
named. And how lucky we are that Joy Johnson chooses Fresno as her home.
FRESNO ART MUSEUM, 1994
The Museum commissioned artist Joy Johnson to make the "Color of Light" installation
for the lobby... "a continuance of a spiritual quest I began at age 50 with
my sense of responsibility of stating my concern for the condition of our world...addressed
with the universal language of adornment which is spiritually uplifting and
crosses all geographical boundaries, recognizing human characteristics that
are bonding...
FRESNO BEE 1991, DAVID HALE
Drawing on the strengths of the world's goddesses- The unfamiliar symbol predominant
in these large scale canvases is the human figure, the female figure to be exact.
What Johnson is about is the goddess - not the idealized woman of pop culture,
the sex object- but the Homeric goddess. She updates Demeter, maternal goddess
of the fruitful earth; Hestia, keeper of the hearth, and Aphrodite, creative,
sensual and lover of beauty. She discovers archetypal relevance for the Everywoman
of the 1990's. Johnson adopts ...the goddess as a symbol for woman, as a catalyst
for a burgeoning earth-centered spirituality and even the emblem for a new political
movement.
ARTISTS OF CENTRAL & NORTHERN CALIFONIA 1989
The work of Joy Johnson incorporates mixed media materials and paint in a fashion
that seems simple but is as technically tricky as it is elegant. Her use of
simple distortion of space, created by contrasting color, causes the eye to
reflexively mix the juxtaposed color. This sets up an illusionary solid body
of color which seems to stutter or zigzag about the art work.