Eric Joyner (born c. 1960) is a contemporary American artist whose body of work has focused on robots and donuts.

Early life and career

Joyner grew up in

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ; ) is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the San Francisco Peninsula. About 20 miles (32 km) south of San Francisco, the city borders Burlingame, California, Burlingame to the north, Hillsborough, California, Hillsboro ...

, and spent some time in

Medford, Oregon Medford is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Oregon, in the United States. As of the 2020 United States Census on April 1, 2020, the city had a total population of 85,824 and a metropolitan area population of 223,259, making the ...

, after his family moved there. He was always interested in art and attended the

Academy of Art University The Academy of Art University (AAU or ART U), formerly Academy of Art College and Richard Stephens Academy of Art, is a private for-profit art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. He began working as a commercial illustrator in 1984 and created the cover art for several video games, such as '' Tales of the Unknown, Volume I: The Bard's Tale'', '' Realm of Impossibility'', and '' Archon II: Adept''.

Robots and donuts

In 1999, he chose to focus only on topics that he likes. He started painting with four different elements: Mexican

masks A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practic ...

city life, old newspaper

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

and

Japanese robots In Japan, popular robots include humanoid entertainment robots, androids, animal robots, social robots, guard robots, and many more. Each type has a variety of characteristics. Canada employs over a quarter of a million industrial robot workers. In ...

. He found that the robots were the most popular feature with his friends. He had been collecting toy robots for about 20 years and wanted to bring them to life. In 2002, he felt that he needed another element to work off of. Inspired by the film '' Pleasantville'', in which

Jeff Daniels Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, musician, and playwright, known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accol ...

paints donuts, Joyner added donuts. The donuts have been featured as both objects of desire and adversaries to the robots.

Sales and reach

Joyner paints approximately 20 paintings a year with his original works selling from anywhere from $3000 a piece to $75,000.

George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chai ...

is one of his most famous buyers. Several of his paintings are used as set pieces in the TV show ''

The Big Bang Theory ''The Big Bang Theory'' is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on CBS ...

''. An adaptation of his 2007 work "The Collator", "Submerged", is featured on the album cover for the

Ben Folds Five Ben Folds Five is an American alternative rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The group comprises Ben Folds (lead vocals, piano), Robert Sledge (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Darren Jessee (drums, backing vocals). The gr ...

album ''

The Sound of the Life of the Mind ''The Sound of the Life of the Mind'' is the fourth studio album by Ben Folds Five, released on September 18, 2012. It is the group's first release since 1999's ''The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.'' The album debuted at No. 10 on ...

''. His painting "Malfunction" is used on the cover of ''Robot Law'', a scholarly volume on robotics law and policy edited by

Ryan Calo Ryan Calo is an American legal scholar, internationally recognized within the fields of emerging technology, especially privacy, robotics, and artificial intelligence. He is a co-founder of the University of Washington Tech Policy Lab and the Ce ...

A. Michael Froomkin A. Michael Froomkin is the Laurie Silvers & Mitchell Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. His work on technology law since the mid-1990s spans Internet governance and regulation, priv ...

, and Ian Kerr.

Books

Joyner has two books about his paintings including ''Robots and Donuts'' (2008) and ''Robotic Existentialism: The Art of Eric Joyner'' (2018).

References

External links

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Widewalls
{{DEFAULTSORT:Joyner, Eric 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists American contemporary painters American illustrators Painters from California Living people American video game artists Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American male artists