Art Evolves Consciousness
Living on the Southern California coast, I am influenced daily by the vastness of the Pacific—its shifting moods, relentless power and a horizon that dissolves into infinity. This series emerged from this proximity, translating the sea’s immensity into layered fields of paint that echo both its physical presence and its emotional undertow.
Thick brushstrokes and textured surfaces become waves of feeling. The sea serves as mirror of the psyche, its turbulence and calm reflecting the inner tides of thought and feeling.
In keeping with my larger practice of creating art that evolves consciousness, these paintings are not depictions of water so much as meditations on its essence. The ocean becomes a portal—at once grounding and transcendent—where the viewer is invited to sense both the temporal changeability of the human self and its dissolution into something infinite and eternal.
Luminosity & Lineage
This series continues the lineage of sacred art, recalling the devotion of medieval monks who transformed manuscripts into radiant vessels of contemplation and the Renaissance artists who sought to reveal divine truths through depictions of sacred religious figures with gold halos — not simply for beauty, but to embody the presence of the divine.
My process—layering oil paint, sand and crystal beads, then pounding in sheets of metal leaf—echoes those traditions of embedding luminosity into matter. Each surface becomes a threshold, where texture and radiance invite the viewer into a contemplative state, much as illuminated manuscripts once guided monks into prayer.
This work is also deeply personal, shaped by years of celibate life in a yoga ashram and immersion in the teachings of yogis such as Paramahansa Yogananda. Yogis who teach a vision of a reality beyond maya—an invisible, light‑filled dimension. These canvases seek to embody that unseen radiance in physical form.
Each painting is both artifact and meditation, a contemporary continuation of centuries of spiritual art that points toward unity and transcendence.
“In the rays of that one Cosmic Light, all things are seen as they truly are—an illuminated reality beyond the shadows of delusion.” — Paramahansa Yogananda
The Journey represents multiple series of paintings completed over just over a decade. During this period, I explored the malleable nature of reality, the transformational opportunity that is betrayal, and the power of self love.
My materials included oil and acrylic paints, texture paste and paper fibers, metal leaf and graphite.
Being a spiritual being in the midst of a temporal and sometimes painful reality. It incorporates a modified Sanskrit mantra, the original is "I Am That I Am". I changed it to "I Am Love". This chant is written in gold oil pen across blank primed canvas, overlaid with an intense experience of emotional disappointment and a recognition of the limitations we face as human beings. We are in the world, but not of the world.
Inspired by a deep and rich internal landscape along with a fascination for the Aurora Borealis and all things magical in Alaska. Dripping and overlapping blues, greens and purple create a mysterious world where it's not clear where the sky, earth and sea begin and end. This is a recurring theme in my work and becomes more pronounced in my Consciousness Series.
This painting is part of a series I completed as a meditation on the nature of reality and its malleable and fluid quality. Thoughts shape reality. When we change, or we change our thoughts, our reality changes. Sometimes our perception of reality and past events will even change over time. The fluid, dripping paint and layering of color speak to the liquid nature of reality.
Self Love, can we actually ever get enough of it? The ironic thing about self love is that one feels rigorously driven to develop it when the conditions of one's childhood were not loving. Either that or you turn to addiction. I decided to cultivate the former.
Created with impasto techniques and acrylic paint as well as crystal granules and graphite powder in acrylic medium and graphite pencil. There are words written in the painting. There is a lot of texture in this painting as well as dripping paint.
The Mystery of Betrayal explores the idea that sometimes when we feel betrayed by a person or circumstances we are able to come to a higher clearer understanding of ourselves, what our path is, our true value. In some sense "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" that overcoming criticism or abuse and persevering can enlighten our senses.
If we can look through this visible, transient world, what we see beyond is something more real, though invisible, and unchanging, a spiritual reality that exists always beneath the surface or just beyond this one.
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Love (human love as opposed to Divine Love) is a crazy, messy thing. I began this painting in New York around 2002 and finished it a couple of years later in 2005 shortly after re-locating to San Diego after my husband and I separated.
My experience of Love, true and lasting Love, is that it's a journey. This was true of my relationship with my former husband (now friend) and was also true of the second great love of my life which was a twisting, turning journey of 12 years.
I believe to truly love there has to be a purification of the ego (at least in my case there was). First I needed to really learn to love myself and meet most of my own needs and then I needed to learn that I have to let people be who they are - it's the greatest gift of love - acceptance. I’m still learning that.
This painting is from a series entitled Love and Other Words, a small group of large paintings I completed in 2005 and 2006 that explore the idea of love and incorporate words or poetry. It is thickly painted in oil and highly textured. The word “Love” is built up in relief on the canvas. Painted on primed canvas and stretched on hand built 2” stretchers, signed lower right.
This work is an exploration of the nature of Divine Love. It's a multi-layered mixed media painting. The first layer is comprised of mystical symbols from various cultures that communicate some aspect of divinity or infinity, sculpted in relief using plaster and paper fiber.
I incorporated a Sanskrit chant I learned in my early 20's living in a yoga ashram, "So Hum Shiva Hum", which translates loosely to “I am that”. You can see this written in the upper right around an infinity symbol in both English and Sanskrit in gold oil pen. This chant is used in contemplation meditation is an opportunity to focus "thinking mind" on the mystery of being.
On left the, I've included one of my own poems about the nature of divinity:
I am all there is
I am all that is
I am the breath in your body
I am the light and the dark
I am the night and the day
I am the sun and the moon
I am your pain and your joy
And the space in between
I am everything right and everything wrong
Inspired by a trip to Alaska where I had the good fortune to take a helicopter ride over a glacier. It's not actually a statement about global warming, although that is a problem. The glacier here is metaphorical, those ice formations that exist in the soul, things like guilt and self doubt. It's a painting about positive, spiritual evolution. The poem below goes with it.
the glaciers are melting in my soul
plates of ice a million years old
mountains of guilt buried so deep
i heard whispers of their movement
in deepest darkest sleep
there’s no stopping them now they are on the move
the ice floes are running change is coming
self loathing and doubt are melting away
ceaseless dripping holds me sway
the ice is melting inches everyday
my personal planet is turning into a bay
there’s no stopping them now they are on the move
the ice floes are running change is coming
when these guilt glaciers are gone
i’ll no longer have an ego saying i’m wrong
my body may then cease to exist
my mind will merge with pure divine bliss
there’s no stopping them now they are on the move
the ice floes are running change is coming
so please don’t feel sorry for me
that my personal planet will no longer be
aside from a thought form it doesn’t exist
its disappearance i shall not resist
Dark mountain
in the canyon of your heart
Solid and hard
it breaks you apart
Dark mountain
rising up craggy and moist
from the valley of your soul
solid rock that steals choice
Dark mountain
wall of pain
keeping you broken
as you remember again and again
Dark mountain
shadows the landscape of your mind
release resistance
allow mutable time
© Jill Joy 2010
Widows into the soul, into the mind, into something beyond the visible world.
Geometric interplay of surreal forms expressing a changing consciousness grappling with new awareness and letting go of old ideas.
Black Ice
Beneath my calms skies there’s black ice in my soul
A slick dark patch that feels life times old
A shallow ice layer deadly in its way
Tread carefully across, it’s where the ego slays
Slick and dark, it’s pain that runs deep
When I’m with you sometimes, up it creeps
It’s the pain of losing what was dearest to me
Of wanting a love so badly I could not see
It’s cold and it’s dark, it’s there all the time
It’s deep and it’s narrow, beyond reason or rhyme
These patches of black ice frozen deep in my heart
Don’t even know they’re there ‘til love has a chance to start
But once they surface, they make themselves known
They come up fast ‘cuz I love you harder, but they are all my own
So as you walk with me if the path begins to feel slick
That’s my black ice. the chill comes on quick
I know you’re here now to help melt it down
As it turns into tears, the pain begins to drown
It’s cold and it’s dark, it’s there all the time
It’s deep and it’s narrow, beyond reason or rhyme
So don’t be surprised if we hit a slick or two
The ice we are on is glacial, it’s ancient electric blue
I think you’ll be around though for as long as it takes
To melt those hidden patches into clear glacial lakes
Once this ice is gone will you be gone too?
Or will you float in the sun with me, skin chilled by liquid blue?
You’ll do what you do, you’ll go or you’ll stay
Maybe when I’m liquid, I’ll send you away
But while you are here I like you just fine
If you can manage a slick patch from time to time
That ice is in me whether I’m with you or another
Running from you won’t melt it, so I won’t even bother
It’s cold and it’s dark, it’s there all the time
It’s deep and it’s narrow, beyond reason or rhyme
The only thing I can fathom that will make it go
Is standing in the light, knowing what is truly so
So let’s forget about the black ice forget about it for a while
Let me stand in the heat of you and your love without guile.
© Jill Joy August 2010
There is a harmonious body of light available to us when we are on our true path and being honest with ourselves about what we need, despite the risks that may require we take.
At one point in my life I experienced chronic back pain. I had an injury that never seemed to heal. It began to dawn on me through dreams that perhaps the dis-ease my body was experiencing was not entirely physical. I began to work with an alternative healer and during the visualization process I saw the honeycomb shapes that permeate this work. The honeycomb represented cells of the body. Some were dark and some were filled with golden light. It seemed that the dark ones were filled with painful memories and unresolved emotions.
The pattern also came to represent the sometimes ineffable order of the universe. In effect, the pain set me on a path of understanding the relationship between the spiritual realm and my physical body and how the soul speaks through symptoms when we fail to listen to its other voices—feelings, dreams and intuition.
When we align our minds with the highest truths about ourselves and our destiny, we are sometimes able to heal our physical bodies.
AUM is layered acrylic paint, iridescent dry pigment and powdered graphite with acrylic medium. The light play on this painting is tremendous. The title AUM refers the chant used in meditation which represents the sound the universe makes.
AUM also refers to the three states of consciousness: Sleeping, Waking and Transcendent. In aligning the three states, we achieve enlightenment.
The honeycomb grid represents a seemingly random but essentially ordered universe and events. Triptych structure references the concurrent existence of the three states of consciousness.
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