If I am lucky, something new and inexplicable often appears in front of my lens. I am always surprised by the mystery of how my best images appear. That excitement and shock of discovery makes my life at these moments a gift.
Joyce TennesonI seek what lies beneath surface beauty. What interests me are intimate human complexities - the darkness as well as the light. I cannot will this kind of transcendent communication into existence. I have to be open and truly present, and if I am lucky, grace descends. My best photographs are an honest collaboration, and when the viewer also connects, I feel the circle is complete.
Joyce TennesonIf I had to pick a single word to describe what my pictures are all about, I would say 'secrets.' As a child I always had a secret world and my favorite book was “A Secret Garden.
Joyce TennesonMy whole artistic life has been devoted to battling myself and my ability to externalize my deepest emotions. As I have gotten older, the work has become more direct, perhaps reflecting the fact that for the first time in my life I feel really free. I have been fascinated with wings all my life. I have had an obsession with transcendence, the need to push forward and metaphorically fly.
Joyce TennesonI never chased after any particular school, never really had mentors; I really just did the work that was true to me.
Joyce TennesonMy early self-portraits appeared effortlessly and seemed like equivalents for my deeper emotions. Many critics remarked that the images had an almost other-worldly haunting presence. For me, they were simply my own reality at that point in my life. What I was trying to reveal was my inner soul in all its fragile complexity. Without knowing it, I was trying to peel back the layers that shroud and bind us all as we struggle to reveal our own authentic selves.
Joyce Tenneson