VCA ART 2021

Clara Joyce

Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting)

Working in the field of expanded painting, I explore images and the complex, fertile role they play in thought and knowledge. Conceptually informed by Jean-Francois Lyotard’s appropriation of the Kantian sublime – ‘if painting has any significance in the technological age of image-production, it is in its capacity to “present the unpresentable”’ – I understand painting as a process that exceeds and transforms our understanding of perception and representation.



The body of work consists of stain paintings installed alongside prismatic steel structures augmenting the objects contained within. The stillness of the stained image juxtaposed with the oscillations of ‘quasi painting’ examines the necessary framing that images require for their coherence; this asks of representation whether it is only discernible within a framework of associations.

Clara Joyce, Installation shot, VCA graduation show, 2021.
Clara Joyce, Recollection I, Recollection II, Acrylic stain into canvas, 2021. Documentation by ALEC.
Clara Joyce, Recollection I, Acrylic stain into canvas, 2021. Documentation by ALEC.
Clara Joyce, Quasi painting object, Steel frame, prismatic plastic film sourced from discarded LCD screens, magnetic strips, painters rag, 2021.
Clara Joyce, Spectral masked figure, Natural Observers, Quasi painting object, A hug and the water fades away as part of series, Acrylic stain into raw canvas, 2021.

We acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which our campus is situated, the Boonwurrung and Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nations, who have created art, made music and told their stories here for thousands of generations. We also acknowledge and extend our respect to the Traditional Owners of all lands on which our work is viewed, shared and enjoyed, and to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

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