Elizabeth Joyce has spent her entire life in love with learning how to draw, paint, and create with ceramics. She is currently working on a series of oil paintings inspired by her Christian faith and loves spending her time teaching private art classes.
Biography and Accomplishments
Elizabeth grew up in the small New England lake town of East Hampton, Connecticut. She spent her time as a student at East Hampton High School in the studio, focused on working towards her Advanced Placement Art portfolio review. By the time she graduated in 2012 with an AP 5 score, she received the University of Hartford’s Artistic Merit scholarship and started her traditional training at the Hartford Art School.
It was there Elizabeth started working towards her BFA majoring in Illustration and Ceramics. She was quickly accepted into the Sigma Alpha Pi Honors Society, the Lambda Alpha Delta Honors Society, and the Epsilon Pi Tau Honor Society (Gamma Phi Chapter), as well as earning the Dean’s Honorary List from 2012 to 2014. In her underclassman years, she received a Freshman Foundation Exhibition award, as well as acceptance into the Connecticut Scholastic Art Awards Exhibition.
Elizabeth remained diligent in her studies until 2014, when she decided to take a pause from her formal education. She accepted an offer to travel the country with a Native American Church group and spent a year gaining a better understanding of Native American history and traditions. She was invited to participate in various traditional ceremonies in Arizona, Colorado, and California.
Life led her back to Connecticut in 2016, when she decided to extend her hiatus from art making to pursue a new avenue of interest in mechanical drafting. Elizabeth received her Computer-Aided Design Certificate and entered the Aerospace industry as a mechanical drafter in 2017. She continues to work on 3-dimensional models, assemblies, and technical drawings as a Lead Tech.
In 2020, life drastically changed, and Elizabeth found herself working remotely, spending her time quarantining with family. Nevertheless, it was a welcomed break from “office culture” for her. In the sanctuary of her fiance’s childhood home, her love and passion for art was revived. Elizabeth spent her newly acquired free time drawing small surrealistic value drawings with graphite pencil, often in her future mothers-in-law garden. She became endlessly inspired by the happiness her drawings brought to her close friends and family.
Elizabeth now spends her days in her home studio, researching and creating large scale oil paintings. Her new studio space has allowed her to expand her artistic interests; after spending the previous few years dedicated to small value drawings, she decided to pursue oil painting to finally capture the vibrant colors of her favorite subjects. Elizabeth loves to portray clear blue skies contrasted against bright primary colors. She takes on complex and detailed compositions often depicting extravagant Old-World architecture that is juxtaposed with vividly colored birds, flowers, and animals from her garden. She will often spend years on a project, allowing her the time to render her work realistically.
She now finds inspiration for her imagery from her Christian faith. Elizabeth became a born-again Christian in June of 2023. She was raised in the faith but lost touch with her roots until her passion for researching alternative history theories led her back to the Bible. She aspires to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ through her artwork, forever seeking to invoke the Holy Spirit in other’s hearts. As she patiently flows through her lengthy artistic process, she loves listening to various Christian contrarian authors such as Gary Wayne and Paul Stobbs.
She also strives to capture her passion for researching the historical narrative for answers to unresolved questions. She is heavily inspired by ancient Gothic and Greco-Roman architecture, as well as American Revival architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries. Notable subjects she has recently explored have been the rose window of the Washington National Cathedral and the National Capitol Columns in the Washington D.C. Arboretum. Both pieces are a part of a series of five paintings that she is currently in progress of. The series will consist of her first five oil paintings, held together by a unified color pallet. The first piece, titled Agency, was completed in July 2022 and she is currently finalizing the second.
While Elizabeth works towards rebuilding her portfolio, she enjoys conducting private art classes. She seeks to develop a full curriculum that teaches artists of any skill level how to draw and paint. She would love to eventually offer classes in sculpture and wheel throwing ceramics, her second favorite form of art marking; as well as 3D printing with creative CAD software. Her ensuing goal is to start an Art Fellowship Center in order to build a space that offers artists of all ages access to the equipment and spiritual support they need to accomplish their creative goals.