Joy Laville
English, 1923- (active Mexico)

Untitled, 1970 ca.
Pastel
17 x 9 in. (irreg.)

SBMA, Gift of Charles A. Storke
1994.57.58



Undated photo of Laville

COMMENTS

Joy Laville was born in 1923, Isle of Wight, England, and today lives and works in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

The simplicity of Laville's work is deceptive. She struggles to reduce her artwork to its essence, searching for an image that will "read" like poetry. The ocean remains for Laville a symbol of the unknown. Laville's serene images are generated by disquiet; only careful contemplation of the image delivers the emotion they hold within. She imbues each figure, still life, landscape or interior with a form of temperance that conveys tension while giving them presence. Even her portraits reveal more about the sitters than simply their outward appearance.

During the spring of 2004, Joy Laville was honored with a retrospective exhibition at Mexico City's Museo de Arte Moderno. Her evocative work—reflective memory suspended in time—belies its depth. Leonora Carrington referred to it with admiration as "a fingerprint" because it is unique. Laville works zealously and has presented twenty-one individual shows in twenty years, in Mexico, Europe, and the United States. 2004's retrospective exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno, curated by Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros, brought together works from more than four decades and represented Joy Laville's unique and continuing contribution to contemporary Mexican art.

http://www.ruizhealyart.com/index.php/guest-artists/item/joy-laville.html

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Joy Laville was born in England, near the English Channel, miles away from her present-day home near Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Often drawing upon early childhood memories of the foggy sea, she creates soft yet dynamic works that explore color and its interaction with light.

In Untitled, Laville portrays two nude figures with their backs turned, both divided by shades of yellow and blue. The dreamlike landscape that they inhabit is not of the natural world, but rather one drawn from memory and nostalgia. Her work was the focus of a major retrospective exhibition at Mexico City’s Museo de Arte Moderno in 2004.

- SBMA title card, 2013