Once Upon A Time

Encaustic & reclaimed paper, 24x24, 2023

The daughter of a forester, my work evokes a sense of place and speaks to remembered moments through selected bits and pieces from the natural world usually with a reference to trees. It is a call for the stewardship and preservation of our natural world.

I create “assembled landscapes,” using melted pigmented bees wax mixed with resin known as encaustic medium. The hard physicality of process as I scrape, burn and tear intertwines with subject matter as I contemplate loss, devastation and erosion versus perseverance and new growth.

Joy Hagen lived in the jungle in the Philippines as a young child. Back home in Seattle meant summers camping, hiking and exploring the Pacific Northwest. Hagen is currently owner/manager and resident artist at Studio 103 in Pioneer Square. Honors include an Allied Arts Foundation Award, plus grants from King County 4Culture and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture and five residencies at Centrum in Port Townsend. Her work is in the permanent collections of Kenmore, Kent and Seattle and Swedish Medical Group in Edmonds, Everett and Issaquah.