Sean Joyce Ave Maria

Artist Bio: Sean Joyce, born in 1956, is a neoclassical figurative Realist painter and sculptor. His technique draws inspirations from the Mannerists to the Surrealists, from the Renaissance and Dutch masters to the Romantics and the American Realists. He is completely self-taught; having no formal art schooling. His artistic gifts were evident in his first sculpture work done at the age of three. He began oil painting at seven, making adroit Cubist and Impressionist studies. He soon discovered the style and quality he felt the deepest affinity with in the Italian Renaissance masters. He won art awards in all the schools he attended, setting his own art curriculum from the sixth grade until his high school graduation. Rather than going to college, he then decided to further his education by applying his diverse talents in the film industry, where he worked for the next ten years in various capacities. He worked as a key animator at Bakshi Productions, was a storyboard artist/illustrator for Columbia Pictures and other major studios, and finally, for five years, was a matte painter/designer at George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic. After winning the 1986 eighth annual James Wilbur Johnston Sculpture competition, held in Washington at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Mr. Joyce left his film career and briefly went on to teach figure and portrait sculpture, painting and drawing at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. For three consecutive years, beginning in 1989, he was invited as guest teacher for Cal State University Summer Arts Festival at Humbolt State University, in the areas of life drawing and portrait and figure sculpture and painting. For the past ten years he has worked almost exclusively on his fine art. His work can be found in the collections of Gerard Depardeau, Noah Wyle, Nick Cassavetes, Charles Sheen, Luke Perry and Jason Priestly.

Sean Joyce