Interview: Dominique Joyeux
Luca Curci talks with Dominique Joyeux during FRAGMENTED IDENTITIES, the second appointment of BORDERS ART FAIR 2021, at THE ROOM Contemporary Art Space.

Born in France, Dominique Joyeux lived in many overseas countries, training in workshops in the West Indies, the South Pacific, Corsica, and the south of France before settling near Lyon. Psychotherapist with autistic children, she nourishes her heart with painting and poetry. Teaching Letters, she pursued her artistic quest writing a text for each of her works. Colored spaces surrounded by a setting evoke microbiology and moving continents. If the search for colors characterizes her work, she offers to the eye both acrylic canvases with abundant material and others where the oil glazes are supported by a very graphic approach.

Luca Curci – What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
Dominique Joyeux – What triggered my desire to paint was the shock of colors and light when I arrived in the Caribbean islands. I started my apprenticeship in a first workshop in Guadeloupe with a pastelist. I continued to learn all the techniques (pastel, watercolor, acrylic, oil) in several workshops: Guadeloupe, Wallis (South Pacific), Corsica.

LC – What are your thoughts while you paint? Do you have any habits or rituals while you work?
DJ – I forget everything that does not concern my work in progress, time does not exist anymore. I let my hand draw spontaneous pictures that I will rework later. An important step is the choice of the first color which is also done according to my attraction, then I distribute the other colors (cameos and opposite colors) on these quasi cellular spaces delimited by a dark outline with the knife. First evocation of life. I can work in the manner of the pointillists but in “macro”. Sometimes I play with the thicknesses by using different binders, sand, sawdust. Or I prefer flat tints. If they are in oil, I pass several layers between which I interpose a varnish: this contributes to the depth and luminosity. That said, as I do research on my colors (which I prepare myself from pigments), the result with acrylic paint is also brilliant. So much for the spontaneity and the preparatory work of abstract works. When I have a precise project, I organize the space according to that.

LC – We were attracted by your last artistic production, has the artwork presented been created for the festival or as a part of preexisting works?
DJ – The artworks presented have not been created for the festival but are recent paintings, one corresponding to this hybrid tendency I mentioned earlier, “Le piano seul – The brush alone” and the other, “Les corps silencieux – The silent bodies”, more in the line of suggestive abstraction where the body imposes itself at the mercy of spontaneous drawing. It seemed to me that they could resonate with the theme of the exhibition because I seek to bring together thoughts, images, emotions in a single impulse: a form of reconstruction of the psychic being despite the fragmentation operated by the traumas of our worlds (war, intolerance, violence).

LC – How do you feel when you see your work completed?
DJ – I am happy with the task accomplished. I forget it for a few days and come back to discover it as if it were not mine.

LC – We were attracted by your last artistic production, has the artwork presented been created for the festival or as a part of preexisting works?
DJ – The artworks presented have not been created for the festival but are recent paintings, one corresponding to this hybrid tendency I mentioned earlier, “Le piano seul – The brush alone” and the other, “Les corps silencieux – The silent bodies”, more in the line of suggestive abstraction where the body imposes itself at the mercy of spontaneous drawing. It seemed to me that they could resonate with the theme of the exhibition because I seek to bring together thoughts, images, emotions in a single impulse: a form of reconstruction of the psychic being despite the fragmentation operated by the traumas of our worlds (war, intolerance, violence).

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the festival?
DJ – The theme of the festival “FRAGMENTED IDENTITIES” evokes for me the human, cultural and global trauma rooted in the clash of cultures and the breakdown of ancient civilizations; but also the attempt of each individual to reach for a meaning, a dignified and rich encounter that lifts the soul and brings back poetry and hope.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
DJ – This site is very well designed, fast, concise, fluid, aesthetic. The objectives of Itsliquid are clearly explained.

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with us?
DJ – Yes, I am happy about that. I hope it would be an opportunity to get my art appreciated.