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Joyce Moloney

@moloneyjoyce

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🇮🇪Artist;Visual Storyteller
Mother of Story Emotionalism☘️
'I paint the stories emotions leave behind.'
[email protected]
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WHAT IF EMOTION COULD BECOME A LANGUAGE OF ITS OWN? In 2017, I began a movement with that question. I called it Story Emotionalism™. But the story began long before I gave the movement a name. I graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the renowned Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork, Ireland, in 1999. In 2001, I completed a Certificate in Art Therapy Facilitation through a year-long placement programme. Those experiences shaped the way I see the human being behind the image. Not simply as a face. Not simply as a subject. But as a carrier of stories. Because every person carries an invisible archive: memory. love. loss. desire. wounds. dreams. contradictions. resilience. And so I began to ask: What does a lifetime of experience leave behind? What happens when our stories become embedded in the way we look, feel, remember, and become? That question became the foundation of Story Emotionalism™. I don't simply paint what a person looks like. I paint what their story has done to them. My paintings explore the emotional architecture of being human — the space where story meets emotion, memory meets identity, and vulnerability meets resilience. For me, the canvas is not merely a surface. It is a place where the invisible becomes visible. This is not a new label I have attached to my work. It is a movement I began in 2017. A movement is still evolving. A visual language is still unfolding. And a story I am still painting. I am Joyce Moloney. Mother of Story Emotionalism™. Welcome to my world. 📩 Collector & exhibition enquiries: joycemoloney777@gmail.com #ContemporaryArt #Collector's #IrishArtist #WomenInArt #ArtAndStory taken in Ireland (country) by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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QUEEN OF EMERGING ARTISTS AND HER SOULMATE A Story Portrait of Anita Zabludowicz Joyce Moloney | Mother of Story Emotionalism | 2025 Paintings begin often as a vision as a blueprint within the blackboard of my mind. I created Queen of Emerging Artists and Her Soulmate in 2025 as a Story Portrait of Anita Zabludowicz..a celebration of a woman whose collecting has, in my eyes, always carried something beyond possession.Vision Belief. Risk. Friendship. Possibility. Legacy.I wanted to explore the idea of the collector not simply as someone who acquires art, but as someone who can change the trajectory of an artist's story by choosing to see them.Within this painting I placed fragments of a life and a philosophy: the emerging artist,the collector's gaze,design, transformation,partnership,the infinite possibilities of the creative mind,and the beautiful relationship between an artist and the person who believes in their work.The hands surrounding the composition became my visual language of connection..a frame within a frame, suggesting that art does not exist alone. It moves between people. It is seen.It is believed in.It is carried forward. And at its centre is the heart..because ultimately, I believe that collecting from conviction is an act of the heart as much as the eye.In January 2026, I personally brought the completed painting to Anita's London offices.I did not know whether she would ever see it. I did not know where its story would go.And perhaps that uncertainty is part of the work itself. Because once an artist releases a painting into the world, it begins another life. Artist → artwork → collector → institution → audience → history.The story keeps moving.That is what I am increasingly discovering through my own artistic philosophy of Story Emotionalism: We do not simply make paintings.We make stories visible. Perhaps the most beautiful thing an artist can do is to place a story into the world and trust that, somewhere, sometime, someone will see it.This painting is my tribute.My act of recognition.My offering.And my belief in the extraordinary possibility of emerging artists. Anita Anitazart ,this story was painted because your story mattered to me. by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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THE COLLECTOR’S GAZE Some paintings are portraits.Some paintings are stories.And some paintings enter into a conversation with the history of art itself.I created THE COLLECTOR’S GAZE as a homage to Katrin Bellinger and her extraordinary fascination with the artist at work.Through @the.artists.at.work her collection celebrates not simply the finished artwork, but the human story behind its creation..the artist, the studio, the act of making, and the lives, voices and histories that might otherwise disappear into the frame.It made me ask:What happens when the portrait of the collector becomes a portrait of the stories she has chosen to preserve?And so the face became more than a face.Around it,the artist emerges.Paintings become memories.Women from art history step back into the light.Past and present begin to braid themselves together.This is the idea behind my STORY PORTRAIT.. portraiture that moves beyond likeness and into the stories, memories, identities, and emotional histories held within a person. It is an expression of the artistic movement I have developed:STORY EMOTIONALISM. Stories separate us as individuals,yet connect us as one.They make us different.They make us human.When shared, they become threads connecting one life to another.. across generations, cultures, and experiences time. For me, storytelling is not separate from art. It is at the heart of it. Every face carries a history.Every life contains a story. Every story carries emotion.And every emotion has the power to connect us. A portrait should, therefore, ask more than:“Who is this?”It should ask:“What have they lived, what have they carried, and what story do they leave behind?” The accompanying poem,became another layer of the portrait..a tribute to the power of collecting to preserve the stories of artists and bring forgotten voices back into the light.Katrin, this is my response to the world you have spent so much time looking at and collecting: the artist at work.Perhaps this is what art does at its most beautiful: one person looks,another person creates, and somewhere between the two,a story continues.Honoured to have submitted to @thebritishprize 2026 Joyce Moloney. M.O.S.E☘️ by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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PINKIE PROMISE — Story Emotionalism 18×24inches Acrylic paint on Canvas Collection; NOTION OF IMPERMANENCE 2019. The childlike act of Pinkie Promises is a physical connection with another that builds,in essence a legitimate foundation of trust.. PINKIE PROMISE was born from a meditation on the invisible threads that bind us to one another..promises made in moments of tenderness, trust and vulnerability, and carried long after the moment itself has passed. Within the layered faces, intertwined hands and curled fingers, the painting holds several stories at once: the promise we make to another, the memories we carry within ourselves, and the quiet conversation between past and present. I used the blue and ochre landscape to become almost dreamlike, suggesting a world continuing to move around us while, internally, time can stand still. This is where Story Emotionalism lives..in the belief that a painting is not simply an image but a vessel for memory, emotion, and human connection.A tiny gesture can contain an entire lifetime. A pinkie promise may last only a second, yet its emotional story can remain with us forever. Some promises are never spoken twice...They simply live and become part of us and the path and purpose of our lives. PINKIE PROMISE A little finger, curled with care, A whispered vow hangs softly there. So small the gesture, sweet and true, Yet worlds can turn on what we do. Trust is born where truth is shown, In seeds we plant, in hearts we’ve known. It grows through time, through joy and pain, Through loss and love, through sun and rain. Some bonds are threads we can not see, Yet stretch through time and memory. They wind through all we’ve said and done, Through days we’ve lost and days we’ve won. And when the darker hours descend, Old ghosts return, old stories bend. Across the mind, their shadows glide, The ones we loved, the ones inside. Outside, the city blazes bright, A thousand voices fill the night. The streets may roar, the crowds may call, Yet inner echoes drown them all. For silence has a sound of its own, A distant voice, a familiar tone. Behind closed eyes, the past appears.. A map of love, a river of years.👁👇 M.O.S.E☘ taken in Ireland (country) by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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LETTERS TO RUTH The Self-Portrait Patron 16 × 22 inches | Mixed Media on Canvas 2019 Joyce Moloney | Mother of Story Emotionalism A self-portrait should be more than a facial representation of the sitter but a complex composition of layered elements of truth that contribute to one's lifes living narratives What if it could become a letter? This painting began with my fascination for the extraordinary story of Ruth Borchard, the pioneering patron whose vision created one of Britain’s most remarkable collections of artist self-portraits. Between 1966 and 1971, Ruth wrote to more than 200 contemporary artists, asking them to part with something deeply personal:their own image. She wasn't simply collecting paintings, she was collecting stories. And so, I imagined writing back to Ruth,not with ink, but with paint. The letters surrounding me become a visual correspondence. Ruth's portrait is worn upon my T-shirt as we wear the faces of our musical heroes-why shouldn't we wear the face of an art patron? The Star of David acknowledges Ruth's Jewish heritage and refugee story. The angel brooch leans towards the letters, almost as though guarding.. or listening to the conversation between artist and patron. And within my own portrait, another portrait emerges. My eyes deliberately draw the viewer inward: Look again. Look deeper. Who are you looking at? Who is looking back? And what does an artist choose to reveal of themselves? For me, a self-portrait is never simply an image of how I look. It is an autobiography of the creative self—a record of memory, influence, admiration, identity,and the people whose stories make us who we become. Ruth asked artists to reveal themselves. So, decades later, this is my answer. Here I am, Ruth. Perhaps that is the beautiful circularity of this work: Ruth collected self-portraits. I have created a self-portrait about Ruth collecting self-portraits. The painting becomes the letter. The portrait becomes the reply. And the story continues. LETTERS TO RUTH The Self-Portrait Patron Joyce Moloney ☘️ Mother of Story Emotionalism #StoryEmotionalism #RuthBorchard #RuthBorchardArtCollection #SelfPortrait #IrishArtist taken in Kings Cross, London by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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LACKING LOVE… THE EMOTIONAL RAYS 120 × 100 cm | Acrylic on Canvas | 19 July 2020 Joyce Moloney — Mother of Story Emotionalism Some paintings are portraits. Others are stories disguised as portraits. Lacking Love… The Emotional Rays was inspired by a poem written by Sir Richard Branson as a teenager, reflecting on separation, first love, memory, and the strange feeling of growing older. I was fascinated by the emotional world contained within those words. Rather than simply painting the man behind the Virgin brand, I wanted to explore the human being behind the achievement..the vulnerability, longing, relationships, memories and need for human connection that exist beneath every public identity. The eyes throughout the painting ask their own questions: Who sees us? Who understands us? Who loves us? And what happens when love is absent? The Virgin imagery represents ambition, adventure, risk, and achievement...but surrounding it are childhood, intimacy, ageing, loneliness, observation, and human vulnerability. The work, therefore, became less about celebrity and much more about a universal question: What is success without love? For me, this is where Story Emotionalism begins — taking a story, entering its emotional landscape, and allowing that emotion to become visual language. The central embrace became the emotional heart of the work: two human beings held within a world of watching eyes, memories, masks, and experiences. Painted in 2020, the work now feels like an early chapter in the development of my artistic movement... where story, emotion, symbolism, and human experience collide on the canvas. I don't paint people simply to record what they look like. I paint the story of what it means to be human. Joyce Moloney.☘️ Mother of Story Emotionalism. #MotherOfStoryEmotionalism #ContemporaryArt #ContemporaryArtcollectors #virginunite by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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THE CABARET… WAITING IN THE WINGS Acrylic on Canvas 20 × 39 inches Collection; BREAKING BOUNDARIES, 2019 Come closer…the world is a stage, and each of us is playing out our own personal dialogue. The Cabaret… Waiting in the Wings explores the theatre of identity.. the masks we wear, the characters we become, and the versions of ourselves we perform for the world. The tragic mask, the comic mask, and the woman caught between them speak to the emotional contradictions of being human. Yet look closely at the central figure.. one eye remains uncovered. She is not completely hidden. She is watching, questioning, waiting. Perhaps that is the real story of this painting: how long will we remain in the wings, waiting for permission to step into the spotlight of our own lives? We can become the supporting character in somebody else's story, forever helping, watching, and wondering what might have been… or we can choose to become the STAR of our own narrative. If the curtain closed tomorrow, would you be proud of the performance you gave along the way? Would you have pursued what made your soul come alive, or would you have settled for being the master of ceremonies instead of the headline act? We are all guilty of donning the mask in certain circumstances. Sometimes, it feels easier to live through someone else's story than to complete our own. But perhaps the greatest act of courage is to remove the mask, step beyond the wings, and discover the person waiting underneath. Because life isn't a rehearsal. The curtain is already up. The question is: Are you ready to step into the spotlight? “Let your soul take you where you want to be.” The Phantom of the Opera. Joyce Moloney MOTHER OF STORY EMOTIONALISM 2019. #STORYEMOTIONALISM #ContemporaryArtcollectors #IrishArtist #WomenInArt taken in Cork, Ireland by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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STAGE WIZARD… AMATEUR REVIEW! 18 × 24 inches Acrylic paint on Canvas November 2019 A dream came first. Upon the blackboard of my mind.... Before the inception and design of a major Broadway production of Moulin Rouge, I found myself in New York, visiting the studios of D.M. Standing before his work, I openly questioned his latest maquette in front of his own understudies.. suggesting it was not as successfully presented as his previous designs. The amateur questions the genius. Or perhaps, in the strange theatre of the imagination, even the amateur has a voice. This painting explores that peculiar space where dreams, reality, theatre, and imagination collide. For an artist, the work exists first upon the blackboard of the imagination — long before the hand sketches it into life. Sometimes, the mind creates realities that seem impossible… Until they become art. THE TRICKS OF THE MIND My mind said, “Let’s have some fun,” Into the dreamscape I went, Where nothing was quite what it meant. A castle appeared, then vanished from view, A stranger waved…I waved back, too! Woven wonderfully into folds of the dark, A picture appeared... then ignited a spark. A whisper became a story, a thought became light, A script revealed itself somewhere in the night. So I picked up my pencil, my brush in my hand, And painted a world that was never quite planned. “Make believe,” whispered the mind with a grin... And suddenly, magic came pouring within. The impossible suddenly started to make sense, While reality lost all its common sense. Oh, mischievous mind, what tricks you can bring.. You dream up stories and little worlds… then call it the act of thinking,' hooray! Joyce Moloney.☘️ MOTHER OF STORY EMOTIONALISM taken in Moulin Rouge The Musical - Broadway by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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PASSAGE OF TIME 18 inches × 24 inches Acrylic on Canvas Collection; NOTION OF IMPERMANENCE Solo Exhibition, New York 7th November 2019 Some paintings are created with paint. Others are created with questions. PASSAGE OF TIME was born somewhere between the two. The faces within this canvas are fragments of a life being lived..the woman we were, the woman we became, the people we met, the choices we made, and perhaps even the versions of ourselves we left behind. How many times have we stopped in the middle of our own lives and asked... What if? What if I had taken another road? What if I had turned a different corner? What if I had chosen another career, another love, another life? What if I had been brave enough to refuse the expectations placed upon me? Especially as women, how often have we found ourselves negotiating the invisible architecture of conformity.. trying to be enough, while quietly wondering who we might have been if we had given ourselves permission to become? And yet... The only true constant in this life is CHANGE. Time moves. Lines become chapters. Chapters become turning pages. The turning pages become a story. And eventually, whether we realise it or not, all those moments..the heartbreaks, the questions, the wrong turns, the courage, the fear, the becoming..accumulate into the greatest masterpiece we will ever create: A LIFE. “Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.” W. B. Yeats Perhaps that is why we must stop waiting for the perfect moment. Perhaps the moment was always here. This painting reminds me that impermanence is not something to fear. Nothing stays still. We do not stay still. The faces change. The story changes. We change. And somewhere between who we were and who we are becoming... time is painting us too. For this slideshow, I chose “She Used to Be Mine” by #Sara Bareilles ..because sometimes a song does not simply accompany a painting. Sometimes, it understands it. PASSAGE OF TIME A meditation on memory. Identity. Choice. Regret. Womanhood. And the beautiful, painful privilege of becoming. “We are not losing life.We are becoming it!" Joyce Moloney.☘️ MOTHER OF STORY EMOTIONALISM taken in Cork, Republic of Ireland by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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THE TWO-FACED FINE ART WORLD SILENT WHISPERS 18 × 24 inches|Acrylic on Canvas Collection:Silent Whispers, 2020 Some stories do not arrive loudly. They do not demand attention or announce their presence. Instead, they gather quietly at the periphery of vision..behind the familiar, beyond the accepted frame.waiting for someone willing to pause, to look again, and perhaps, to truly see. Within The Two-Faced Fine Art World, the figures are neither absent nor forgotten. They inhabit a threshold between visibility and invisibility; between what society chooses to recognise and what it allows to recede into silence. They are the overlooked voices, the protected truths, the untold narratives, and the human presences that exist in the fragile space between what is seen and what is felt. The work also turns its gaze towards the art world itself. To be an artist is, at times, to exist within a landscape governed by shifting tastes, cultural fashions, and the often unstable architecture of opinion. What is celebrated today may be overlooked tomorrow. What is considered unfashionable, difficult,or too deeply rooted in a personal narrative may be pushed beyond the centre of attention. For the artist whose voice does not easily conform, there can be a particular kind of invisibility. A practice may remain at the edge..not because it lacks meaning, but because its meaning refuses to be simplified. So, artists can become like the figures within this painting: Present, yet unseen. Speaking, yet unheard. Standing within the crowd, yet somehow outside the frame. But a collector's wall is never simply about art. It is about the narratives we choose to bring into our lives. It is about what we preserve, what we question, what we allow to accompany us. Every work carries more than an image; it carries a way of seeing. A story. A memory. A question. A witness. This is Story Emotionalism: An invitation to encounter art not only through the eye but through memory, imagination,and emotional perception. Look closer. Listen longer. Let them speak. Because sometimes the stories that whisper are the ones that remain with us longest. Joyce Moloney☘ MOTHER OF STORY EMOTIONALISM taken in London by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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THE WHITE COLLAR FIRE DANCERS Acrylic on Canvas 60cm × 90cm × 4cm BREAKING BOUNDARIES COLLECTION · 2019 I was given three things. A story.A poem.An image. Then, I was asked a question that became the beginning of this painting: What do you see? Not: What does the story look like? Not: Can you illustrate the poem? Not: Can you reproduce the image? But... What happens when fragments of another person's world enter your imagination and become something else entirely? The challenge came from a man I met at a FAMILY Office conference in London. Later, an email arrived containing three fragments.Three clues.And I did what I have always done.I listened beyond the words. I looked beyond the image.I allowed the spaces between the story, the poem, and the picture to enter my imagination.At first, there was only a feeling. Then, a flicker. Then movement. Then fire. And slowly... they arrived. THE WHITE COLLAR FIRE DANCERS. Figures caught between two worlds. Between discipline and desire. Between the expectations of society and the ancient human, they need to break free.White Collar. Order. Status. Convention. The roles we are given. And then... Fire Dancers. Instinct. Passion. Movement. Rebellion. I saw people dressed in the expectations of the world...carrying secret revolutions beneath their skin. They came in white collars,buttoned neatly to the throat,carrying the weight of all the names the world had given them. Be this. Do that. Stand here. Do not cross the line. But somewhere beneath the fabric, beneath the posture, beneath the perfectly rehearsed face... fire remembered its name. First, a spark. Then a tremor. Then one foot moved. And another. They did not burn the world down. They danced. I believe where Story Emotionalism lives is.... Not in the illustration.Not copying. But in transformation.A story enters.An image collides with a memory.A poem opens a door.And somewhere between the head, the heart and the hand and a new visual language is born.The original story is only the beginning.My imagination carries it somewhere else.Then the painting is born.And when it meets its viewer...another story begins.Because art should never tell you everything! M.O.S.E ☘ taken in London, United Kingdom by @moloneyjoyce
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Twin Reflection…  The Designer’s Double. 'A brother’s eye is a good mirror.' 2020 | 24 x 18 inches | Acrylic paint on canvas This is my second submission to the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts this year. Twins have always fascinated me. Perhaps because, during my second pregnancy, I carried twins for eighteen weeks before losing one. For one terrifying moment, I feared I had lost them both… until the sonographer found what I prayed to hear: A very strong heartbeat.  My beautiful Eve Katelynn was born happy and well at thirty-seven weeks. Of course, I have often wondered about the life and the sister who might have been. But I found peace in the belief it was better to have lost her in the womb than the world! Twins also run through my family. My younger brother and sister are twins, and throughout my life, I have been fascinated by their extraordinary connection..their emotional sensitivity, their unspoken understanding, and that mysterious sense of simply knowing one another. My paintings begin with the belief that human beings are storytelling creatures. We carry our families inside us. We carry our histories We carry people we have loved, people we have lost places we have belonged to and moments that have quietly changed us. And sometimes, those stories remain within us long after the actual moment has passed. This painting was also inspired by the designer twin brothers, Scott and Bruce Pask.. two creative individuals,one in theatre design and the other in fashion' whose own shared connection and distinct identities fascinated me. Twin Reflection: The Designer’s Double became a meditation on reflection, identity, creativity, and the invisible bonds between us. It asks us to consider the other self... the life that might have been, the person who mirrors us, challenges us, understands us… or perhaps sees something in us that we can not see ourselves. Because sometimes, a brother’s eye is the truest mirror. Joyce Moloney.☘️ MOTHER OF STORY EMOTIONALISM #IrishArtist #StoryEmotionalism #Collector's #VisualStorytelling taken in New York City by @moloneyjoyce
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2 months ago
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