Caryn Joy Colman is a painter, mixed media artist, sculptor based in Meaford, Ontario.

Their practice focuses on exploring the concept of ecological anxiety. In a tone of playfulness and beauty, her style is both figurative and abstract.

They work primarily in paper layers and many materials: graphite, chalk pastels, watercolour, wax crayons, and metallic paints. She uses water and mineral spirits to spread the pigment and create flow. Often she uses unconventional papers (marine charts, topographic maps) as a substrate. A rabid curbside collector, her garden sculptures are assemblies of salvage such as discarded metal, forest debris, plumber’s pipe, copper wire, crystals, plastic bags, bones, antiques, etc. Her binding techniques include weaving, welding, fabric mache, beeswax, clay. The sculptures are treated to be outside all year.

Their work explores human excess and waste in the context of land use. She is drawn to round forms like old world globes, domes, spheres, and hoops. These forms symbolize the circle of life, closure, reincarnation, and Samsara. And perhaps ultimately the Mother Earth’s womb? Another recurring form she collects is the spear, fashioning futuristic plants that pierce the earth with colour and whimsy. Perhaps a masculine counterpoint to the circle? Her drawings and paintings explore what people in our privileged land leave behind when they eat, drink, and take off their clothes.

Graduating from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design led to art jobs in New York City, scenic painting for the National Ballet of Canada, founding watercolour workshops on the Bruce Peninsula, and teaching at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Marriage and motherhood also bore a tourism lodge in Temagami, Ontario, which promoted the arts and environmental education. After a nomadic life on a houseboat, and then a trailer with two cats and a mare (https://carynjoycolman.wordpress.com/author/carynjoycolman/), she has happily settled in Meaford.

Their work has been exhibited in a number of exhibitions throughout Ontario including, but not limited to, Meaford, Kimberley and Temagami and is held in private collections. She was a featured artist in Wild Ontario: An Artist's and Photographer's Guide, by Rob Stimpson and Craig Thompson (ISBN: 1-55046-433-7). She is a recipient of the Katherine Burgman Memorial Award for watercolour (Northern Ontario Artists Association) Indian Graveyard, Cape Crocker, 1995

Currently, they are remembering that there is still beauty and joy to celebrate in a world of ecological chaos. Caryn Joy is playfully painting nudes to adorn intimate spaces like the bedroom and bathroom (because art should be EVERYWHERE). She is thrilled to be giving new life to other people’s junk in her weirdly futuristic garden sculptures.

Caryn Joy regards the artist as alchemist who transforms raw materials into a new currency, influencing people’s feelings, thoughts, and actions. The artist is society’s gamechanger.

Caryn continues her solitary studio practice, but also by engages with other artists (without whom my world could be a very dull place) for support and nourishment. As a former theatre scenic painter, she especially enjoys performance art collaboration.