Joyce Conlon

As an adult who went to live with my adopted family around the age of one, I have begun to wonder whether I came to abstraction because much of what I have to convey is preverbal.

To look at my paintings is to see evidence of a struggle, often joyful, using different techniques, language, if you will, to get my emotional meaning across.

My process involves painting directly on the surface or indirectly on a disposable palette sheet which I then press onto the painting surface. I enjoy the placement of controlled hard edge forms with softer ones. I use repetition of forms as an organizing principle.

Working with acrylic paints on paper or wood panel and sanding intermittently, I mask and partially reveal what lies beneath. I sometimes use sanding and buffing to burnish the surface and aspects of buried history or palimpsest are brought to light.