Joyce Majiski
A nomadic life has taken me from the jungles of Borneo to the houseboats of Kashmir and from the Great Barrier Reef to the Beaufort Sea. However it is the Yukon Territory, a place with enough wilderness to find great inspiration and peace which has been my home since 1984. I feel a strong connection to wild places and my work as a wilderness guide and biologist has provided me the opportunity to spend time in these environments.
Print and papermaking have been a constant interest since 1986. I have sought studios in Mexico, Italy, Spain, the USA and across Canada to learn new techniques. I am interested in many forms of expression. My latest body of work (Inner Spaces, Outer Places) incorporates bookworks, photography, painting, scuplture and woodworking.
As in nature, my work is an integrated series of layers, dense with technique, colour and information, a result of using many techniques over až period of time.ž The finished works carry their own sense of history. The process of finishing a piece may take several years and I carry many unfinished pieces with me whenever I visit a new studio.
I am interested in the connections and inter-relationships found within nature and how intangible concepts such as instinctive knowledge and connection to place (home) can be transferred intožvisual imagery and language. A complex web of relationships link living creatures and their ecosystems.ž I also use the visual similarities between micro and macro environments (ie: stone textures mirroring landscape) or manmade images rather than natural images (ie: satellite photos rather than lichen textures) to incorporate metaphorical links between scale and mimickery in nature. Of particular interest is our connection to nature, the qualitative differences between nature and wilderness and our sense of home/place.