J. J. L’Heureux lives and works out of her studio in Venice, California. In 2000-2001 she made her first trip to Antarctica in order to collect digital images of ice and snow for a white-on-white color field series of “landscape” paintings with ice as the focus that she was working on. During this first expedition L’Heureux’s image collection expanded to include the wildlife and pristine environment. Penguins, all types of seals, whales and the unique varieties of birdlife found in the Southern Oceans became her living models inhibiting the vast, windy, white and cold landscapes.

After her first exposure to Antarctica she returned every year thereafter to continue building her extensive digital database. Sometimes she went as a passenger on a Russian icebreaker, as an art and photography lecturer on adventure cruises or on her own in a small motor sailor, the Golden Fleece, to circumnavigate South Georgia. L’Heureux has worked in the Falkland Islands to gather images of penguin colonies that inhabit that windy and isolated place. She also participated with the South African Penguin Study on Robben Island, South Africa, collecting data that the Marine and Coastal Management Unit of South Africa will use to help protect and encourage this endangered species. She recently returned from her second trip to the Sub-Antarctic Islands, south of New Zealand, in order to collect images of 4 additional species of penguin found in the region.

J. J. L’Heureux attended the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, the Academy of Art, San Francisco, California, the Parsons School of Design, New York, New York, and Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan. She also completed a one year course taught in conjunction with the San Francisco Zoological Society and the University of California that led to her becoming a certified docent at the San Francisco Zoo.