bio

  • early years

    Joy McAughtrie fell in love with horses when she worked in stables as a teenager then attended art school in Montreal. Once married, she travelled and lived across Canada with her husband, Don, and three children. Horses were a favoured theme and her art was featured on local television in the Maritimes. She also had her own radio show.

    Media: Oils, charcoal, pastels, poetry.

  • middle years

    After studying with Tom Thompson, her loose brush strokes became her artistic signature. Architecture inspired her, as did flowers, a love for ships, mountains and a continued rendering of landscape which were shown in Toronto and Vancouver galleries. In the seventies, she abandoned oils and worked in acrylics in a smooth straight-edge technique with a more subdued palette and minimalist style influenced by teacher Joan Balzar (collected by the Vancouver Art Gallery). This later transitioned to a return to oils and the narrative art genre inspired by such artists as Alex Colville and Andrew Wyeth.

    Media: Oil, wood carving, block prints, silk screen, mosaic tiles, acrylics.

  • later years

    As time passed, Joy McAughtrie entered her most prolific period and walked into a liberated and playful style, often combining genres and mediums with an exuberant use of colour. She was enormously creative and a dedicated instigator when it came to innovation and the arts.

    Media: Oil, stained glass, bronze sculpture, water colour, encaustics, pen and ink.

Love of landscape was further inspired by a move from Vancouver to a rural life in the Gulf Islands. Everything intrigued her, from an old boot, to a rusting truck, her chickens, and garden, as well as continued travels. Her winter sojourns in San Miguel, Mexico, produced a series on churches and paintings of nuns, influenced by her Mexican studio which was a former cathedral. Her artistry was also showcased with pen and ink sketches, Put That Damned Old Mattock Away, by David J. Spalding, and occasionally she published cartoons and articles in the local paper. She showed at the Red Tree Gallery (now closed), and “Art Off The Fence” on her beloved Pender Island which she helped found and where her memory is honoured. Joy McAughtrie leaves a prolific legacy primarily in private collections.