About

Joyce Polance is a painter working in oils.

Polance was born in New York City in 1965. She attended Wesleyan University and received a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has exhibited internationally and has work in many private and corporate collections. Polance is represented by Judy Ferrara Gallery in Three Oaks, MI and Elephant Room Gallery in Chicago. She may also be contacted directly for the purchase of paintings.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

For years, I’ve been pulled into the restless spaces between abstraction and representation, figures and landscape. I’ve often turned my canvases upside-down as I've worked - frequently destroying surfaces I've just painted – to create chaos through color, texture, and movement and reflect an emotional authenticity (in my case, anxiety), rather than a visual one.

At present, I find myself entering a different state of being which has arisen through a move from Chicago to Upstate New York, and a new series is revealing itself to me: portraits of my therapist. I’m painting these entirely with my fingers and hands. While I continue to incorporate many of the above processes, these new pieces are less tumultuous, more a demonstration of deep attachment and connection. Indeed, when I attempt to move away from accurate representation of my subject, my hands bring me back to it – an indication that instead of depicting anxiety, I am painting love.