Joyce McCarten - Fine Artist
A Full Circle 2023 Morocco and Provence 2022 Pandemic Meanderings 2020-2021 My Pirate Days 2019 Peace of Wild Things 2017-2018 African Series 2016 Bone Series 2015 Selected Paintings 2000-2014 Commissions and Large Paintings
Still Life Italy and Greece Figures Archives Montana and France

Bones Paintings - 2015

The elegant shape of the human pelvis and femur has been a constant source of influence for me since my earliest days of art making.  The solid forms, so rhythmically sculpted, and the perfectly designed structures have given me vital information for many of the landscape, still life, and abstract paintings of the last 25 years. 

This knowledge all came together in the summer of 2014.  As I glared at my x-rays showing a deteriorating hip replacement and a disintegrating Greater Trochanter, I saw past the dysfunctions to the beauty of the bones.  My bones.   

As I searched for medical treatments, I also searched for more and more ways to look at the bones.  My studio was cluttered with plaster casts of the pelvis and femur and antique drawings made from early explorations of medical corpses. I studied them sideways, upside down and inside out. 

Each drawing and painting began to take on a life of its own.  Some are idealized views of how I wish my joint had held together.  Others represent my desire to see the bones as abstract forms.  Making this work reminded me that God’s handiwork is beautiful, no matter its condition.  Some of us have obvious disabilities, and some of us do not.  In some way, however, we all suffer, we are all vulnerable and we are all weak.  That is being human and that is what I see in these bones.

Boing! Oil on canvas 36x48" 2015
Thriving Oil on canvas 52x84" 2015
Selfies Oil on canvas 36x72" 2015
Particle Attack 24x36" Oil on canvas 2015
Out of the Depths Oil on canvas 24x24" 2015
If I Only Had a Socket Oil on canvas 36x48" 2015
Altercations Oil on canvas 36x48" 2015
Perfect Fit Oil on canvas 36x48" 2015
Assembly Required 24x38" Oil on Canvas
X-Ray #1 Charcoal and Acrylic 19x24" 2015
X-Ray #2 Charcoal and Acrylic 19x24" 2015
Pelvis study Charcoal 19x24" 2015
Pelvis study Charcoal 19x24" 2015
Forming #3 Charcoal 19x24"
Forming #2 Charcoal 19x24"
Forming #1 Charcoal 24x24"