Joy Grindrod’s Ryvoan SOMETIMES less is more. That’s certainly the belief of artist Joy Grindrod, whose work is currently on show at Rheged, near Penrith.
Joy’s paintings of crags and mountains, whether near her Coniston home or further afield, are what she calls “minimalist”.
She likes to focus on a particular area that catches her eye, believing this to be a truer representation of the moment she so wants to capture. Using a mixture of oils, graphite, paper and other materials, Joy communicates her own experience of her beloved mountains through her art.
She says: “If you only give yourself a certain amount of time you can’t go into detail and you just have to try to get a feel for what you see. You pick out the essence of what you see, so it’s minimalist in that sense.”
Joy lives in the National Trust-owned house where both she and her mother grew up – her grandmother grew up in a village just down the valley – and she was brought up around the mountains.
“I’ve moved away but I’ve always come back,” she says. “I’ve always been drawn to wild places. I was introduced to the hills as a child so it’s like a second nature to me.
“It’s the changing light. It’s never the same – there’s always something new to look at. Even if you’re familiar with a certain area it’s never the same.”
Joy works from photographs and what she calls “spontaneous sketching”, which she does as quickly as possible in an attempt to capture the essence of a mountain: “I don’t paint on the spot as the process changes too quickly. I like to get a feel for the mountain like that. My work has developed from spontaneous sketches in rapidly changing weather conditions that allow the eye to become selective: seeing the key elements that drew me to that particular moment – the essence of the place.
“I enjoy experiencing conditions that create those magical contrasts; watery greys become a wealth of colour when lit by a shaft of sunlight on the side of the fell or highlights the line of a crag.”
Joy loved art at school but decided to drop the subject in her teens for what she thought were more “practical” options.
She says: “I had always been good at art but I didn’t pursue it. I was trying to do what was right rather than following my passion.”
Leaving school at 16, Joy drifted through a series of unsatisfactory jobs for more than a decade before giving in to her instincts and taking a degree in fine art at the University of Central Lancashire.
“Mountain Landscapes” runs at Rheged until February 28. Entry is free.
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