Biography, Artist’s Statement & CV
Biography:
Joy Lynn Davis is an artist from California, now based in Sweden on the island of Adelsö, near Stockholm. Primarily a painter, she works with watercolors, acrylics, oil paints, and chalk pastels, often on a large scale on canvas, silk, cotton paper, and murals. Her meticulous detailed paintings include layers of 23 karat gold leaf, inviting viewers to sense the presence of magic and the sublime in nature and sacred spaces. During 2012-2015 while based in Nepal, she documented community response to the theft of Buddhist and Hindu stone sculptures in the painting and research project “Remembering the Lost Sculptures of Kathmandu,” which has been exhibited in the United States and Nepal. Her current series of paintings portray the forests of central Sweden.
She received her BA in Art from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2002. In addition, she studied the Tibetan and Nepali languages, Himalayan art history and religions, and thangka painting. She has been an artist in residence at Kathmandu Contemporary Arts Centre and the Santa Fe Art Institute, and has received grants and support from the Belle Foundation for Cultural Development, the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics, UNESCO, and the Swiss Embassy in Nepal. Davis is the founder of Himalayan Art and Cultural Heritage Project, a U.S. based non-profit working to preserve and increase awareness for the artistic and cultural heritage of Nepal.
Artist’s Statement:
I believe it is the artists’ responsibility to offer hope and remind us of the beauty in the world and the interconnectedness of beings. Art should inspire us to shine brightly and to bring about positive change in our communities. To create a great work of art, an artist should employ her head, heart, and hands to fully engage viewers. Art should be meaningful and intellectually stimulating, should make us feel passionately, and finally, should be beautifully and finely crafted.