Joan Fitzsimmons

Lives and works in Hamden, CT, USA

Artist statement

I view the world with a singular eye, peering out through myself in an attempt to understand that within and without. The work presented in my portfolio meanders through varying series, but one thing has always led to another. I tend to work on several projects at once. I’ve examined the tenuous, ebbing boundaries between reality and perception. I’ve asked questions about human relationships, the nature of home, my relationship to nature, and the significance of the quotidian. With my series, "The Woods", I am exploring the meaning of landscape, personally, culturally and historically. I have ventured into the forest, the unknown, to discover that not only is it a place of both fear and fantasy, but that its very history embodies all of that. My means of expression is photographically based. I am creating large-scale traditional darkroom prints, combining both negatives with photograms, toning and bleaching, often applying inks and paint. I make hand-made roughly birdlike forms, combining them with found twines, yarns, and materials from nature, latex gloves that suggest both human activity and a ghost-like presence. I continue to address the same fears and fantasy, but additional thoughts on the current state of the environment, the socio-political currents, work their dark magic. The woods, today, are speaking to me of a dark presence and present.

Artwork