Italian/British. 1989
Joy BC (Joy Bonfield – Colombara) is an Artist and Goldsmith working predominantly in noble metals and bronze.
Her works are challenging pre-existing notions of precious materials and are often ingrained in the societal ideals of western female bodies in sculpture. Joy BC plays with mythologies and re-examines the fascination of the ‘Classicism’.
Using ancient techniques, she creates work which is evocative of both ancient Greek and Roman art. Yet, what Joy creates is an artful manipulation of form and narratives which make the pieces magnificently modern. The body of work ‘Deconstructed Classics’ are quite literally a deconstruction of western classical sculpture.
Joy’s work has been described as both wearable artwork and miniature sculpture. The work is emotive, socially and politically loaded. Each piece carved into existence stands to commemorate something or someone, to hero an emotion, a moment or theory.
Joy, a native of London, was profoundly influenced from an early age by the artistry of her parents – her mother, a painter and lithographer, her father, a sculptor. Joy’s art education focused intensively on painting, drawing and carving, enhanced by a profound appreciation of art within historical and social contexts.
Joy BC received her undergraduate degree from the Glasgow School of Art and her M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London. She has also held two residencies in Japan. The first in Tokyo, working under the tutelage of master craftsmen Sensei (teacher) Ando and Sensei Kagaeyama, experts in Damascus steel and metal casting. She was subsequently awarded a research fellowship to Japan’s oldest school of art in Kyoto, where she was taught the ancient art of urushi by the renowned craftsmen Sensei Kuramoto and Sensei Sasai.
Whilst at the RCA she was awarded the TF overall excellence prize and the MARZEE International graduate prize. Shortly after her graduation in 2019, her work was exhibited in Japan and at Somerset House in London. In 2021, her work was exhibited in Hong Kong as well as at the ‘Force of Nature’ exhibition curated by Melanie Grant in partnership with Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery.
The Swiss National Museum in Zurich, recently added one of Joy’s pieces to their permanent collection which is now part of the Alice and Louis Koch Collection. Besides several commissioned works, Joy BC is currently working on a piece for the Nelson Atkins Museum in the USA.
