Joy Ivill

Joy Ivill trained in sculpture, performance and installation at UNSW Art & Design but has always loved textiles. After researching the methodology of Louise Bourgeois, she felt inspired to use embroidery and appliqué in her art and set about teaching herself to embroider.

Her embroidered and appliqued artworks depict unexpected images which are meant to charm, unsettle, surprise and challenge preconceptions of traditional needlework. She often draws upon psychological and emotionally significant events from her childhood, her later life and her adventures abroad to inform her work, however lately she has been making a Sacred Garden series of large, simple works. Aerial View of a Sublime Constructed Landscape, Centennial Parklands, is one of this series.

Image: Joy Ivill, ‘Sacred Garden Series’ Aerial View of a Sublime Constructed Landscape, Centennial Parklands, 2018, COTA
Materials: fine DMC embroidery threads size 8 and 12 on Sweigart linen