Emily Joyce: Deal, or, How I Became Radioactive

In Deal, or, How I Became Radioactive by California-based artist Emily Joyce uses geometric abstraction to explore hidden systems, art history, and games comes bursting to the surface in this expansive yet sharply focused exhibition. Joyce investigates systems and connections: natural, mathematical, scientific, and philosophical. Explored through her special brand of visual and linguistic riddles, Joyce flattens the distance between time and space, using high- key geometric forms to puzzle at the eternal mysteries of our world and better understand our own time.

 

Inquisitive and playful, Deal, or, How I Became Radioactive incorporates essential qualities of both human nature and fundamental scientific concepts through the lens of games, namely, playing cards. Notions of freewill vs. determinism and chance vs. strategy are investigated in all the paintings presented—often quite literally. For example, for All In (Three Hands), Joyce used a shuffled deck of cards to determine the painting’s subject and composition. Pick a card, any card.

 

Measuring the certainty of scientific truth against human intuition, Joyce still allows ample space for beauty in the equation. The results of Joyce’s inquiries are the fanciful yet rigorous, buoyant yet logical paintings in Deal, or, How I Became Radioactive, an exhibition teeming with visually stunning discoveries.