Joy Redstone is known for her intricate, imaginative, archetypical artwork. Her work is experiential, taking an emotion or memory and conveying it metaphorically in her assemblage work. Assemblage, essentially collage with objects, focuses on the evocative nature of things, but the meaning to the viewer is also created by the patterns and larger shapes that are formed. Joy’s work is an outgrowth of her interest in nature, a way to celebrate healing, and a method of sharing her vision of beauty which does not always adhere to what is literally present.

Joy’s work has been influenced by her lifelong fascination with creativity. As a dreamy child in Central Pennsylvania, she found solace from a traumatic family in the beauty of the natural world. She has no formal training in art but when she experienced a sudden bereavement through suicide 11 years ago, she began to make art. The fragmentation that she experienced because of her loss resisted definition or organization, but her intuition compelled her to start creating assemblage pieces that in their patterning gave her back to herself.

Joy’s art recognizes and highlights a tension in the disparate value our society places on broken, mundane, and discarded objects. Her use of broken glass, ceramics, or discarded toys is a way to make what is broken whole again. She uses natural objects as way to what is found in the sacred solace of nature.

Joy currently serves on the Board of Next Gallery  and is a member of D’art 360 Gallery. She has had 17 solo shows and has been accepted to many juried shows. Joy has experienced the healing power of art and finds communicating with people through art about what is beautiful, sorrowful, or both to be one of the deepest pleasures she could imagine.

Joy Redstone is a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed addiction counselor. Joy received her MSW from Boston College in 1995. Her clinical work has focused on the intersection of mental health struggles, addiction, and oppression and has been characterized by a commitment to advocacy and social justice. She now works as therapist in private practice and is trained as a psychedelic therapist.