Joyce Neimanas

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Neimanas lived in Los Angeles, California for ten years before moving to New Mexico with her husband Robert Heinecken, whom she met in 1976 while she was teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). She and her husband split their time between Los Angeles and Chicago before they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2004.^[1]

Neimanas received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1966 and, in 1969, her Masters in Fine Arts from SAIC, where she studied with Barbara Crane and Kenneth Josephson.^[2]

Neimanas has spent much of her career experimenting with making photographic images without the use of a camera. Recurrent themes in her imagery include the anxiety of personal relationships, male/female stereotypes, and contemporary gender roles.^[2][3] Her digitally created work uses familiar images from advertising, art history, and pop culture.^[4] Her unconventional style incorporates negatives by anonymous photographers, torn prints, and rephotographed pictures. By hand-coloring or drawing on the surfaces of her prints, she creates a tension between the photograph as an art object and as a reproduction of reality. Similarly, her collages of Polaroid SX70 prints create surfaces that question the relationship between art and real life.^[2]

In 1970 Neimanas joined the staff at SAIC, where she taught for 35 years and was chair of the photography department. She taught in the photography area of the Art and Art History Department at the University of New Mexico until retiring in 2010.