Waking or sleeping, artist Joy Brentwood’s world is infused with colour. By Liane Arno
I REMEMBER as a little girl when we first emigrated to Australia being given a book of Dreamtime stories. I am sure you will remember it if you were also lucky enough to have one. It wove wonderous stories of how Australia was created according to the peoples who have the oldest most accurate oral history in the world. I absorbed everything in it.
When I was interviewing the brilliant artist, Joy Brentwood, whose world is so infused with colour, I was taken back to that time when my young mind took me on its own colourful journey to a land of long ago.
I REMEMBER as a little girl when we first emigrated to Australia being given a book of Dreamtime stories. I am sure you will remember it if you were also lucky enough to have one. It wove wonderous stories of how Australia was created according to the peoples who have the oldest most accurate oral history in the world. I absorbed everything in it.
When I was interviewing the brilliant artist, Joy Brentwood, whose world is so infused with colour, I was taken back to that time when my young mind took me on its own colourful journey to a land of long ago.
Because Joy’s first appreciation of art and colour started in the little town of Tootgarook – the Land of the Croaking Frog. As Joy was lulled to sleep to dream her colourful dreams it was to the sound of the frogs who, according to the dreamtime story of Tiddalik, swallowed up all the waters and then released it when the eel made him laugh, so ending the drought. And when she woke it was to go to the Progress Hall which doubled as the primary school of only 16 students and be inspired by a young student teacher who saw her potential and encouraged her to take her art seriously.
When Joy was only eight or nine she won a prize in the Herald Sun Art Show in her age category. Her scene of a market garden scattered with people earned her great praise as, unlike her peers, her people were not stick figures staring out at the viewer but full figured in a variety of poses. I laugh with Joy that despite the praise it was probably the last time she painted portraits – because, above all else, Joy’s greatest passions are painting flowers, finding beauty in every bloom, and landscapes full of filtered light.
Joy’s grandfather was the one to take the family to Tootgarook. He was a World War I veteran diagnosed with tuberculosis who needed to find a home out of the city environment to carry on his trade of carpentry. She loved her time there and found it quite challenging when the family moved to Melbourne when she was 13.
It was only two years later that Joy met her childhood sweetheart, Ken. They married when she was just 21. In those days, of course, the choices for young women were limited. With a young family, a career in art was no option. Of the traditional choices of nurse, teacher or secretary, Joy chose the secretarial path and later moved into office management, ending up as weekend gallery manager at AGRA Galleries in Camberwell. Busy with raising two young children, and helping her husband with his business as well as working, left no time for art.
It was not until the children were at school that Joy decided to take up her art more seriously and studied at the CAE as well as taking classes with Alan Martin, Max Meldrum’s protégé.
Joy immersed herself in her art. She delighted in creating kaleidoscopes of colour and loved developing subtle combinations of opalescent colours to create her works of art. She was encouraged to teach classes herself. While resulting in Joy spending less time creating her own work (which Joy tells me results in her feeling, “out of sorts”), these workshops proved to be so important on two levels – to attend to the present and to look to the future.
As to the present – Joy’s husband found that he had cancer and then, on top of that, motor neurone disease. As husband and wife fought the inexorable march, Joy escaped once a week to her world of colour. Her tight knit group of fellow artists kept her spirits buoyed even when after only two years Joy’s husband passed away.
Later, at an exhibition of the art group, she met budding artist Ian Pascoe who enquired about joining the group. Joy politely told him that there was no space for him in their “very exclusive” group. She was surprised to find some time later that other members of the group had allowed him entry when he persisted (possibly failing to tell them he had already asked and been refused). In a parallel life, Ian had lost his own wife to cancer, within weeks of Joy losing her husband. Now, newly retired he was seeking comfort through art. After a time of sharing stories of loss and bonding through art, Joy and Ian decided to share a future together.
And that future was to come together to the small, sleepy village of Rhyll. Their home and studio are on the water’s edge and they are surrounded with inspiration. With Ian’s boat moored just a few metres away, their vista encompasses the changeable Western Port waters, the myriad of seabirds and vivid landscapes.
Scenes such as these have inspired Joy to create her watercolours, pastels and acrylics to such a high standard that she has been awarded many prizes. In 2013 she was awarded signatory membership of the Australian Guild of Realist Artists, in recognition of a consistently high standard of exhibited art.
As to the future, Joy hopes to replicate her win last year of the Kath Ballard Watercolour Award in the Australian Art Excellence Award Exhibition. Who knows – maybe she will be inspired [already said above] by a scene from the wonderful part of the world in which they live.
One thing is for certain – whatever she creates - it will be colourful.
Work by Joy Brentwood and Ian Pascoe is showing at ArtSpace Wonthaggi this month.
When Joy was only eight or nine she won a prize in the Herald Sun Art Show in her age category. Her scene of a market garden scattered with people earned her great praise as, unlike her peers, her people were not stick figures staring out at the viewer but full figured in a variety of poses. I laugh with Joy that despite the praise it was probably the last time she painted portraits – because, above all else, Joy’s greatest passions are painting flowers, finding beauty in every bloom, and landscapes full of filtered light.
Joy’s grandfather was the one to take the family to Tootgarook. He was a World War I veteran diagnosed with tuberculosis who needed to find a home out of the city environment to carry on his trade of carpentry. She loved her time there and found it quite challenging when the family moved to Melbourne when she was 13.
It was only two years later that Joy met her childhood sweetheart, Ken. They married when she was just 21. In those days, of course, the choices for young women were limited. With a young family, a career in art was no option. Of the traditional choices of nurse, teacher or secretary, Joy chose the secretarial path and later moved into office management, ending up as weekend gallery manager at AGRA Galleries in Camberwell. Busy with raising two young children, and helping her husband with his business as well as working, left no time for art.
It was not until the children were at school that Joy decided to take up her art more seriously and studied at the CAE as well as taking classes with Alan Martin, Max Meldrum’s protégé.
Joy immersed herself in her art. She delighted in creating kaleidoscopes of colour and loved developing subtle combinations of opalescent colours to create her works of art. She was encouraged to teach classes herself. While resulting in Joy spending less time creating her own work (which Joy tells me results in her feeling, “out of sorts”), these workshops proved to be so important on two levels – to attend to the present and to look to the future.
As to the present – Joy’s husband found that he had cancer and then, on top of that, motor neurone disease. As husband and wife fought the inexorable march, Joy escaped once a week to her world of colour. Her tight knit group of fellow artists kept her spirits buoyed even when after only two years Joy’s husband passed away.
Later, at an exhibition of the art group, she met budding artist Ian Pascoe who enquired about joining the group. Joy politely told him that there was no space for him in their “very exclusive” group. She was surprised to find some time later that other members of the group had allowed him entry when he persisted (possibly failing to tell them he had already asked and been refused). In a parallel life, Ian had lost his own wife to cancer, within weeks of Joy losing her husband. Now, newly retired he was seeking comfort through art. After a time of sharing stories of loss and bonding through art, Joy and Ian decided to share a future together.
And that future was to come together to the small, sleepy village of Rhyll. Their home and studio are on the water’s edge and they are surrounded with inspiration. With Ian’s boat moored just a few metres away, their vista encompasses the changeable Western Port waters, the myriad of seabirds and vivid landscapes.
Scenes such as these have inspired Joy to create her watercolours, pastels and acrylics to such a high standard that she has been awarded many prizes. In 2013 she was awarded signatory membership of the Australian Guild of Realist Artists, in recognition of a consistently high standard of exhibited art.
As to the future, Joy hopes to replicate her win last year of the Kath Ballard Watercolour Award in the Australian Art Excellence Award Exhibition. Who knows – maybe she will be inspired [already said above] by a scene from the wonderful part of the world in which they live.
One thing is for certain – whatever she creates - it will be colourful.
Work by Joy Brentwood and Ian Pascoe is showing at ArtSpace Wonthaggi this month.