Joy Roggenkamp was acutely interested in nature and her work largely concentrated on landscapes. She also produced figurative studies and images of Brisbane and its suburbs, including a series of wonderfully expressionist scenes of the city in the 1960s, like Suburb with storm approaching. Her husband, Ross McCowan recalled that, as he was driving the family to their home in Nundah one day, Joy asked him to pull the car over to the side of the road so she could capture this tremendous scene.