Joyce Majiski Artist's Statement & Biography

Authors

  • Joyce Majiski

Abstract

Statement
I have been privileged to travel and work throughout the northern wilderness, initially as a biologist and wilderness guide and now as an artist.

Twice I have been surrounded by thousands of the Porcupine Caribou herd migrating across the Firth and the Malcolm Rivers and I have drawn on these experiences to create this work.

For me, caribou symbolize not only the expanse of wild land required to sustain an intact ecosystem but also the fragility of the northern boreal and Arctic ecosystems. Many caribou herds are in decline and some, such as the Porcupine Caribou herd, which migrates between the Yukon and Alaska, have their critical calving habitat threatened by oil development. I hope my work can raise awareness about the issues surrounding resource development and extraction in critical wildlife habitats. Arctic environments may seem resilient but they are in fact quite fragile and don't recover well from disturbance. I never tire of watching these icons of the North float over the land. They are insatiably curious, seemingly goofy at times, but ultimately caribou are the most graceful creatures on the tundra.

Author Biography

Joyce Majiski

Joyce's work examines her connection to place, particularly wilderness and northern landscapes, usually within a context of global environmental concerns. Her past careers as a biologist and wilderness guide in the Yukon Territory, Canada have augmented and contributed to her artistic practice.
Primarily a printmaker, Joyce has morphed her monoprints and etched plates both into large-scale installations and a variety of other forms including animation, books and sculpture. Her mixed media works include a wide range of media and include text, photos, drawing, handmade paper and found objects.
Joyce has worked in printmaking studios internationally and has been invited to participate in projects or collaborations with artists in the UK, Russia and Mexico. She has organized and facilitated a series of residencies at her Tuktu Studio and was instrumental in organizing a project involving artists from Canada and Mexico (the LLAMA project, website www.llamaproject.com).

Joyce's work can be found in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, The Banff Centre for the Arts, as well as in several private collections. Two large- scale permanent public commissions, Winging North and River Walk, can be seen in Whitehorse. Joyce continues to do research through residencies and collaborations with other artists and exhibits her work nationally and internationally.

Joyce makes her home in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Northern Review 33 Cover

Downloads

Issue

No. 33 (2011)

Section

Artist's Statement & Biography

License

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

 a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c. The journal has the right to authorize third-party publishers & aggregators to include the Article in databases or other services (EBSCO, Proquest).

d. The journal has the right to share the Article on the Internet, through social media and other means.