By Mya Romero, LA Downtown News Contributor

Jul 14, 2025 Updated Jul 22, 2025

What do Godzilla, Batman, and Hermey the Misfit Elf have in common? In Eric Joyner’s paintings, they exist alongside toy robots and doughnuts.

Joyner builds entire worlds of contradiction. His style blends meticulous craftsmanship with imaginative narrative storytelling, bringing vintage robots and doughnuts to life in surreal, often humorous scenarios.  

Over the past 20 years, Joyner has earned widespread recognition in the contemporary art world for his dream-like, yet extremely technical work. His paintings have been featured on the hit show “The Big Bang Theory” and on the cover of Ben Folds Five’s album “The Sound of the Life of the Mind” and have attracted a global audience, including that of George Lucas.

“Looking Sideways,” Joyner’s 12th solo show at the Corey Helford Gallery, is a vibrant fusion of nostalgia and surrealism. It will be on exhibit July 19 through Aug. 23, along with “Bad Company” by Richard Ahnert; “The Dream of Y?gen” by Lo Chan Peng and Sun-Mi/Pamplemouze’s “House Warming.”

The gallery is open to the public and free to attend Tuesday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m.

The Dawn of Art

Before any robot meets its doughnut counterpart, Joyner exposes himself to a lot of things. He researches people, reviews history lessons, observes, lives life and revisits old toys, opening his mind to whatever curious thought drifts in. And it always starts with daydreaming. That’s his first step: Get really bored and drift into a world where anything is possible.

From there, ideas begin to percolate. Over the next month or two, Joyner lives in that headspace, researching subtopics that stick with him, letting inspiration emerge organically. And if there’s something he can’t stop thinking about, that’s his cue to start.

He’ll photograph toys from different angles, scan in sketches and begin assembling a digital composition in Photoshop. Once the layout feels right, he transfers the image to canvas or a wood panel. He paints primarily in oil, often mixing in alkyds (a fast-drying synthetic oil), which helps him to control the drying time of the paint as he builds up layers, working from background to foreground and dark to light.

Joyner’s work isn’t just playful; it’s wildly conceptual. Even the title, “Looking Sideways,” was sparked by Brian Eno’s song “Blank Frank.” Eno, electronic music pioneer and the mind behind the Windows 95 startup sound, wrote a song with lyrics about a character, saying “he is one who will look at you sideways.”

That sideways glance mirrors the way Joyner approaches today’s world. “Now,” Joyner says, “with AI and all the spam and criminals out there, you have to look at everything a little sideways. You know, have some skepticism.”

The exhibition should encourage viewers to look at his art sideways, piece together details, ask more of his paintings. And if all else fails, try to notice which paintings feature robots who are literally looking sideways.

Joyner’s Odyssey

As Joyner stated in his press release, “The works ask philosophical questions with a light touch: What happens when artificial beings start dreaming? What does it mean to be conscious in a programmed world? Can absurdity be a kind of salvation? As we teeter on the edge of a murky future shaped by artificial intelligence, these paintings become reflections of our collective anxieties and quiet hopes.”

Joyner’s robots aren’t cold or lifeless, they experience fear, shock, wonderment and joy. They’re lost in thought, stuck in existential dilemmas, or caught in moments of quiet vulnerability that feel eerily human.

As described by Gallery Director and Curator Sherri Trahan, “If you look at something like “The Scrollers”…the expressions on the robots are so tangible — the wife looking over the husband’s shoulder at what’s on his screen. It’s right there mapped out for you the way it would be if it were you and somebody.”

These nuanced emotions bring a surprising easily digestible depth to Joyner’s work, inviting viewers to see reflections of themselves in these mechanical figures.

Through other pieces like “Mutant Pursuit” and “Baker’s Nightmare,” we can recognize the humanity and emotionality of their situations in a familiar way, yet beneath that understanding lies a tension about machines and AI developing the same emotional awareness as humans, and the unpredictable implications of that evolution. It’s a theme famously explored in the film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which Joyner makes many nods to in his pieces.

His works for this show are riddled with cinematic Easter eggs, and uncovering each one feels like flipping through a seek-and-find book to decode a dream. From classic space stations and ships to sly theatre marquee titles, ever-so-familiar water towers and explicit painting names, Joyner laces his paintings with pop-culture references that reward those who look closely.

HAL Would Approve

As an artist, Eric Joyner has spent years refining a style that is unmistakably his. From his early days in commercial art to his celebrated solo shows, he’s followed an instinct that favors joy over convention.

“His talent is undeniable,” noted Trahan, “and yet he chooses to paint robots and doughnuts because those things make him happy.”

That choice, it turns out, brings happiness to others, too. Visitors? “They’re going to be overwhelmed with joy,” Trahan said. “I mean, his paintings stir up a sense of nostalgia because they feature toys that we might have grown up with. And at the same time, they're in these scenarios, a lot of them referencing “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I mean, it’s whimsical, and at the same time, it’s deep.”

And for Joyner, the takeaway is simple: “I hope they’re able to forget their troubles and just have a nice diversion,” he said. “Bring a little happiness into their lives…and hopefully it’s a happiness that doesn’t go away right away.”

Amid the uncertainties of a digital age, Joyner’s robots finding comfort in doughnuts offers a level of absurdity, yes — but it is also a warm reminder that it’s the simplest pleasures that make us feel human.