Mica Joy - Giverny Is My Wonderland

During the summer of 2016 I had the most amazing opportunity to study art and art history abroad in Paris for three weeks. We visited Giverny and I found myself lost in the gardens that Claude Monet cultivated to study flowers and botany. Admiring the variety of flowers, I felt a deep feeling of joy and in those moments I related to Monet owing becoming a painter to the flowers. Surrounded by Monet’s flowers I knew without a doubt that I am a painter. The flowers spoke and I listened.

I delight in combining bright, bold colors in ways that stir up emotions of pure joy. My overlapping fascinations with vivid colors and fantasy fuel my desire to distort reality, which has led to my experimentations with lines and colors. Much of my work is rooted in the Formalist notion of significant form; form itself can convey meaning. My paintings are a distortion of reality that expresses the energy that lives within it. The playful, colorful style and the imagery present in my paintings are meant to captivate, overwhelm and evoke the feeling of pure joy.

The Garden of Giverny Is My Wonderland is a part of my ongoing series titled Lost in Wonderland. This nine panel painting of oils and graphite was inspired by my time at Giverny and developed from my photographs of Monet's gardens. It was also influenced by the 1970s Pattern and Decoration movement. It is collision of color, pattern, line, representation and abstraction that represents a fading in and out of reality. It is meant to be a reminder that there is no set idea that defines reality. Reality can very well be a combination of numerous elements, possibly very different elements, that can work together to create unity regardless of the differences. I want this painting to both overwhelm and delight and give people a chance to see and look at things a little differently so that they might questions their current notions of reality.