Joan Desmond - Fine Art - About the Artist

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Joan Desmond lives and works in California. Joan was born on the island of Biliton, Indonesia. Soon after, the family returned to Holland, her mother’s birthplace. Visits to the many Dutch art museums were an important part of Joan's early education. The family later immigrated to the U.S. and also resided in Ohio before moving west.

Joan graduated from California State University at Bakersfield in 1986 with a BFA in studio art/art history, magna cum laude.

Joan's work may be described as abstract, and expressionistic.

ARTISTS STATEMENT

I’m a full-time artist who lives in California surrounded by scenery of the Southern Sierras. These visible backdrops of mountain landscapes and my interaction with nature overall, influence my drawings and paintings. However, my work in general looks beyond visible reality into the realms of thought, feeling, and intuition.

If you consider it, ideas, feelings and realizations are essentially abstractions, abstractions that form an invisible world of their own. The idea of painting landscapes, mental and spiritual landscapes reflecting such a world intrigues me. Plus when I look at the visible world it translates into abstractions for me, everything is shapes, forms, colors and textures, not just nameable objects. So there is a constant interplay between the visible and the invisible, between what I see and what I know, feel, and perceive about a thing; responses that I have to input from the visible world. It’s really a constant process of refining and expressing my perceptions about the world.

The overall approach is to use symbolic color, shapes, and movement within the image to express these concepts.

Please also see: The Artistic Process

TEACHING

Joan has taught Drawing and Art History classes for Cerro Coso College, she taught in the Art Department at Bakersfield College part-time for 10 years, and also lectured in Art History at CSUB. Additional art teaching experience includes the Arts Council of Kern-Artist In Schools Program; and as Fine Art Consultant/coach for the Academic Decathlon at Erwin Owen High.

RELATED ART EXPERIENCE

In 2006, participated in Postmarked 2006, an envelope art exhibition at the Claremont Forum Gallery, Claremont, California.
During 2000-2005, created free-lance design work using various media and digital imagery under the name Canyon Design.
From 2003-2005, helped coordinate and participated in the development of A Stone's Throw Gallery, a juried, co-op artists' venture in Kernville, California.
In 2004, participated as an artist in the Via Arte Street Painting Festival in Bakersfield, California.
In 1997, served as a juror on the committee that selected art for the Bakersfield Centennial Plaza.
In 1994 served as President of the Bakersfield Artist Guild. The Guild was unique as a small group of working artists whose primary function was the support of the Bakersfield Museum of Art. They worked in an advisory capacity, donating individual skills, taught classes, and helped organize the annual, juried, Kern County Visual Arts Festival.