When I think about the Bermuda Triangle, I think about black holes,
the Witness Protection Program and being adopted.

I think about the certainty of a twenty-dollar psychic and the uncertainty
of finding a parking space on Friday night.

I think about disappearances and necessary fictions,
the discomfort of negative space and the feeling
of being both absent and present at the same time.

— Joyce Ernst

 
 

Absence and presence, known and unknown, and magical and mundane. In Joyce Ernst’s artistic practice, two seemingly opposite things can be true at once. Her photographs and writing explore and provoke feelings of uncertainty, curiosity, isolation, and unknowing. Sometimes disorienting yet imbued with a sense of humor, her images engage the viewer in a search for meaning in a fragmented world. Through evocative color, ambiguous imagery, and visual disruptions created in collaboration with the camera’s abilities, Ernst works in a realm where perception is in flux, urging us to question what we feel when we look, and how we understand the world.


Joyce’s experience as an adoptee informs her work, which reflects multiple tensions. Raised with incomplete information about her origins, she learned to navigate a world defined by gaps, half-truths, and contradictions. Her photographs, books and writing suggest that truth is often elusive and unstable, meaning must be worked for, and our emotional responses are often fluid.

Joyce received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Virginia and an MFA from Maine Media College. She divides her time between Texas and Sun Valley, Idaho. She is the recipient of the Pasadena Photography Arts 2024 Photographer of the Year award for her series The Uncertainty of Being. Her work has been exhibited by Studio 162 in Rockport, Maine, the Atlanta Photography Group, the Texas Photographic Society, the Sun Valley Airport Committee and numerous online magazines and galleries.

Joyce Ernst

Resume / CV

Joyce Ernst

joycejernst@gmail.com
www.joyceernst.com

EDUCATION

  • Maine Media College, M.F.A. 2023

  • University of Virginia, B.A. English

  • University of Virginia, M.B.A.

HONORS

  • Pasadena Photographic Arts Photographer of the Year, 2024

  • One of 100 photographers selected to participate in CENTER Santa Fe 2021

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024

  • NYC4PA, Decay, online exhibition

  • F-Stop Magazine, online exhibition #125, Cities

  • F-Stop Magazine, online exhibition #124, Color

2023

  • Thesis Show, Studio 162, Rockport, Maine

2022

  • Sun Valley Airport Show, May-October

  • Fraction Magazine Issue 157, 14th Anniversary Issue

  • F-Stop Magazine Amusement Issue

2020

  • Texas Photographic Society Listening to the Land Exhibition, Texas Tech School of Art, Lubbock, TX, juror Joel Salcido

  • Society of Arts and Crafts and Stonehenge Gallery Photography Show, Montgomery, AL, juror Angie Dodson

  • Dallas Center for Photography Contrast Exhibition, Dallas, TX, juror Peter Poulides

2019

  • Photoplace Gallery Contemporary Landscape Exhibition, Middlebury, VT, Director’s Prize

  • Atlanta Photography Group ATL Airport Show, Atlanta, GA

  • Midwest Center for Photography Landscape Exhibition, Wichita, KS

  • Praxis Gallery, The Sublime Landscape, Minneapolis, MN

WORKSHOPS AND MENTORSHIPS

  • Sarah Sentilles, Right to Write, a Generative Writing Community

  • Maureen Cummins, In Edition: Developing Artist’s Books

  • Joanne Dugan, Writing Pictures: Exploration of Text and Image, Los Angeles Center of Photography

  • Jason Fulford, Photography and the Subconscious, FotoFilmic, Bowen Island, B.C.

  • Claire Strand, Between Intention and Realization, FotoFilmic

  • Richard Reitz Smith and Barbara Bosworth, Artist Book Mentorship

  • Cig Harvey Mentorship, April- October 2020

  • Cig Harvey, Personal Projects in Iceland, NORD Photography

  • Keith Carter, Visual Poetry, Santa Fe Workshops

  • Debbie Fleming Caffery, Master Class, Santa Fe Workshops

  • Rodney Smith, Portraits, Santa Fe Workshops

  • Mark Ellen Mark, Master Class, Maine Photographic Workshops