Joan Loren Gaustad is an artist working in Richmond, Virginia near the VCU campus where the students are a constant source of inspiration. She studied in Bangkok, Thailand, Offenbach Hochschule für Gestaltung, in Germany and holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Gaustad has participated in solo and group shows nationally and internationally with work included at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art and in the Michael Smith installation, It starts at Home, at the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

An installation at Sediment Arts RVA, based on House Hold, a book in collaboration with photographer Michael Lease was curated by Amber Esseiva and Claire Zitzow. VCU’s Anderson Gallery hosted an installation, curated by Michael Lease, of the artwork in Gaustad’s memoir, Someone’s Missing…and I Think It’s Me, in conjunction with the book’s release.

Gaustad’s work features mixed media figurative, dark, and story-loaded images superimposed on diary pages and texts. Her paintings and prints are represented in Richmond by Reynolds Gallery.

Someone’s Missing…and I Think It’s Me, her first memoir, has been nominated for a Library of Virginia Literary Award in Nonfiction. A small zine, Not Missing transcribes the diary pages and cursive writing and is tucked in the back of the book. She has also published RVA ART, a small zine with images of the graffiti and art on the statue bases of Monument Avenue and writing about the protests and gatherings that started in the summer of 2020.

Both are available at Chop Suey Books and chopsueybooks.com.