The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls us towards the infinite, awakening a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural...The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white. — Wassily Kandinsky

Limitless Borders

limitless borders

disappearing mind

dissolving ground

i am nowhere to be found

© Jill Joy

The Void

I am being filled

from the inside out

by a great void.

A vast emptiness

covered by the thin skin

of identity.

© Jill Joy

Solace

quiet moment

silent mind

light cracks through

the dark drawn blind

crowded moments

have now flown

time stretches out

lithe and long

the next moment

cannot conceive

this long moment

a breath of reprieve

© Jill Joy

At the heart of my practice is a simple but profound intention: to create art that evolves consciousness. My paintings are not just visual experiences—they are meditations on the unseen forces that connect us, reminders of the oneness that unites us all.

It’s All Love radiates that truth. The dynamic thickly scraped paint and luminous metal leaf reflect the energy of love as both grounding and transcendent—an ever-present, powerful and dynamic current that moves through each of us.

In the studio, I translate those rhythms into color, texture, and form—inviting the viewer into a space of reflection, healing, and expansion. My hope is that this painting serves as a reminder: beneath the surface of our differences, love is the unifying force.

This painting comes alive with the light and one senses the presence of movement and expansion.

In literature, poetry, and art, the color blue symbolizes a range of emotions and concepts, representing calmness, sadness, and spirituality. It can also evoke depth, loyalty, truth, and tranquility. It signifies both serenity and sorrow, such as in Picasso's "Blue Period," or appearing as a symbol of hope, melancholy, or the infinite. 

With growth and transformation comes peace but also grief and sorrow for our lost self and sometimes remorse we didn’t “see it” sooner.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. The practice treats the break as part of the object's history and beauty, rather than something to hide.

This painting is a powerful abstract exploration of transformation and resilience, rendered in oil and luminous metal leaf. Harnessing intense, radial energy through sweeping strokes of deep crimson, vibrant reds, and fiery oranges that explode outward from the canvas's core.

The dramatic central fissure, a recurring motif in my work that evokes the concept of breakage and subsequent repair, is healed and highlighted by the brilliant, distressed gold leaf.

This application of metallic texture elevates the rupture from a flaw to a feature, celebrating the beauty found in imperfection and the radiant strength that emerges from being pieced back together.

Forgiveness evokes the explosive birth of a new universe — a burst of light and energy that transforms destruction into creation. The radiating strokes suggest both the shattering force of a star’s collapse and the luminous expansion that follows, a reminder that endings are also beginnings.

At its root, forgiveness is this same alchemy: the release of what has wounded us into a field of growth and renewal. It is not about erasing the past or excusing harm, but about loosening the grip of ego — recognizing that another’s flaws and shortcomings arise from their own struggles, not as a reflection of our worth. In this balance — allowing imperfection without tolerating abuse — the wound becomes a source of light.

This painting embodies that moment of transformation, when pain dissolves into spaciousness and a new cycle of becoming begins.

Continued aspiration in the face of loss and struggle. This painting is an acknowledgment of the difficulty and beauty one encounters when making difficult changes that bring greater authenticity and meaning to your life. It's about the process of personal evolution. Stark. Dramatic. Beautiful. Subtle.

The tower motif in my work represents the aspiration of the soul towards unity with universal consciousness.

Rain addresses the purification of the mind and soul of old ideas and insecurities and the birth of new beginnings. Rainwater clears the atmosphere of the sky of debris as tears clear the soul of illusion. We are greater beings than we think.

The rising sun icon in my work represents the emergence of the spirit or soul from the sea of ego based desires and attachments toward an illuminated state of unconditional love and forgiveness. Specifically "Rain" addresses the purifying nature of rainfall as the acceptance of change which allows us to clear our personal "atmosphere" and start fresh after experience has burnished us.

I look up and I see the sky.
It becomes part of me.
My feelings like clouds
against the clear blue vastness,
scudding across the backdrop of
infinite consciousness.
I look out and I see the ocean.
It becomes part of me.
My memories like islands
in a sea of universal mind.
-Jill Joy

According to yogic philosophy, we're born with a karmic inheritance of mental and emotional patterns—known as samskaras—through which we cycle over and over again during our lives. lt also represents a purification ceremony or rite marking a major event in one's life.

The transformation of anger to compassion. The awareness that we each have our own point of view and even a limited one deserves a compassionate response. Compassion is a more powerful response than anger and all beings deserve it.

You know when there's a storm coming, you can feel it. The pressure builds, the winds rise. It may be calm outside but you can feel a storm brewing in your life and it's not remotely clear who you will be or what you will be after it passes. It is the very beginning of something new and the end of what currently is.

Many of us would prefer to ignore the storm until it passes. But some of us want to stand on a cliff, overlooking the ocean with the wind blowing in our faces and the rain beating down on our skin.

Compassion
In my moment of pain,
deep-seated and unavoidable,
I wrap myself in the canvas of compassion.
Purple-blue vibrational waves soothe my mind.
Draped in damp, pliable, paint-stained fabric
the self-judgment lurking in my shoulders
like a sheepish enemy eases.
A white glow of intentional light encompasses my body,
freeing me to love.
(c) Jill Joy 2025

Compassion is a transcendent quality that goes beyond the limitations of individual egos and connects us with the wider world. It involves feeling empathy for the suffering of others and a desire to alleviate that suffering. It's a quality that inspires us to act selflessly, to put the needs of others before our own, and to reach out to those who are struggling, even if they are strangers.

It has the power to heal the divisions and conflicts that so often tear us apart. When we are compassionate, we see the humanity in others, regardless of their race, religion, or culture. We recognize that we are all part of the same human family, and we are all in this together. It creates a mystical connection between ourselves, nature, each other and the divine.

Compassion has the ability to break down the barriers of fear and mistrust that keep us apart and create a sense of connection and belonging that is essential to our well-being.

It helps us to cultivate positive qualities like patience, kindness, and forgiveness. It can inspire us to be more mindful and present in our interactions with others, which in turn can deepen our relationships and make us more resilient in the face of adversity.

In a world that can often feel disconnected and divided, compassion is more important than ever.

(c) Jill Joy 2025

Growth is an expression of personal evolution. This painting reflects a period in my life when an old, self-negating paradigm burst into a new more loving and affirming one. In this instance it marks a moment in time when I sacrificed a neurotic need for perfection (to prove that yes, indeed, I am loveable) for an acceptance of loving despite imperfection, both myself and someone in my life.

Early on, I developed a strong need to be perfect as a way of compensating for a difficult childhood — as a means of proving that yes, despite the evidence around me, I was indeed worthy of love. It was effective in someways but ultimately spiritually and creatively debilitating. It was a means of existence based in a lie. During this period in my life I made a major leap forward into a healthier more accepting way of being.

In my experience, when we grow as people (often by recognizing a truth we have up to that point avoided or been unaware of) there is a burst of energy that occurs inside of us like the creation of a new universe and a new self. We explode outward and inward at the same time and we are no longer the same person. Our consciousness evolves. It’s a subtle process but very real.

I sometimes paint to calm myself. It is an act, like meditation, that slows the thinking mind and connects me to something beyond myself. This painting itself was an act of Solace, a moment in time when I took refuge in color, rhythm, movement and beauty from a turbulent world.

Alaska is painted in vibrant blue and violet and brings a sense of calm and peace, as if gazing on an infinite horizon. Evocative drips and blank spaces create atmospheric associations with lightning, rain, clouds and vast, empty sky.

This painting speaks to the evolution of two souls together on a shared horizon evolving in relationship. Alaska is from my Consciousness Series which explores the evolution of the soul in a field of universal love using nature as a metaphor for this invisible, energetic development.

In the Distance is inspired by a sense of impending fulfillment out into the future; It’s a painting about faith, premonition and growth.

Painted in oil on primed canvas over 2.5" deep hand built stretchers, signed lower right side.

Prints are available. Click above for purchase info.

Life is not simple and things are not black and white. There is the potential for insight and elevation when we are in the depths of confusion or despair.

Surrender to love and fully throwing ourselves into the battle and the drama of life - having the courage to die and be reborn.

To have one's heart's desire just out of reach - lurking under the surface of despair is a sense of luminescent hope.

Divertere means to divert in Latin. It's also the root of the word divorce. To part, to go separate ways. Like water parting. White space underneath represents new beginning. Often we must part with what no longer suits us to make way for the new.

This painting has a sense of fluidity like water. And it's tough to say, are the waves parting or merging?

There is sometimes power in walking away especially from a situation that is destructive or limits us. The experience of loving ourselves enough to say no gives us spiritual wings. Though it can be intensely painful and sometimes scary. To know that we can take care of and love ourselves under any circumstances is truly empowering.

During a near-death trauma or accident death feels close at hand but it’s beaten back by fate perhaps. You can sense the forces of the universe battling overhead as you fight back to life. Even though you survived physically it is a kind of death and rebirth. The thing that nearly killed us can awaken us.

Every beginning requires the destruction of what went before. The Hindus goddess, Kali rules the mutual acts of creation and destruction.

This painting emerged as I dismantled my own life as a corporate marketer to create the one I had dreamed of for 20 years - being a full time artist. A lot had to go. Possessions, relationships, prestige, a hefty paycheck. The space had to be cleared for a new life and more authentic life to emerge.

This painting is an expression of frustration and intensity and great emotional and physical passion. There's a poem written in the work with oil pen and layered over and under with oil paint.

Emotions have messages for us. As uncomfortable as they are I have found it's important to feel them and to allow them to move through the physical body. The intense pressure of an emotion can often lead us to constructive action if we allow it.

I believe that intense, fated love is experienced as a collision of sorts. Like the birth of a new universe in which you are no longer a planet unto yourself. It's my theory that when genuine love is present one is not that much in control of ones destiny.

This is a painting about love. About two people who come together from two very different world views and how that collision creates an explosion of energy and change. Like the explosion that would create the birth of the new universe.

Blame…it’s the response of an addict. And on some level, to some degree, most of us are addicts. Very few of us feel up to accepting responsibility for everything that happens in our lives…the good, the bad and the ugly, especially when it comes to broken hearts and childhood trauma. Relationships gone sour, divorce, breakups—who among us hasn’t placed blame at the feet of our former lover or partner at some point?

I believe, on some level, all relationships are a projection of sorts. Especially those that we engage as adults. We often project our shadow selves on another person. Perhaps when we accept and express our own shadow, we are able to project more light.