-Janet Norris, Artist Statement
When I begin a work my intentions are to create a poetic happening. I have a yen for the kind of magic one experiences when confronted with mysterious places, whether real or imagined, but especially the intimate spaces that are available to the excited mind. I lean toward the visionary, magical and reflective and sometimes humorous.
I often use water in my work, which serves as a metaphor for a number of possible meanings: as a primeval ritual element, a mode of travel, a threat, an escape, a precious resource, and particularly as a metaphor for life, and for death. One of the first paintings I made using water is called, "Doing A Ritual To Bring The Sea Inside". It is a rather strange little painting but it says what I wanted to convey. Zen Buddhism has led me to perceive that the human race lives within a stream, a continuous psychological, emotional, intellectual, as well as a physical mode of being; that awareness or philosophy is in the background of my making process even when I’m not thinking of it-that's the visionary part.
I depict unlike combinations, i.e., nature/culture contrasts - because that's the way they "happen" to me. I grew up in the countryside where Nature was big and dominated my young emotional life, possibly creating the dreamy side of my character. I have lived all of my adult life in an urban environment, but I always make sure that I have a place to hide from it in the back of a garden so that I can re-dream the big Nature experience. I occasionally also use humor of the gentle, ironic kind. My work method involves a chance thought, something I read, or saw, or heard, followed by the realization that I may have a painting to do. I collect images from the internet and place them in a folder: water scenes, hills, trees, boats, humans, animals, etc., are among images I finally sketch onto the canvas. I usually create the painting in my imagination, carrying it around in my head for days or weeks before I begin to make a drawing on the canvas. I think of the images which are projected on the canvas as an armature to get the work started, and it soon disappears as the painting process cancels out its intentions in a flurry of exciting color application. I often leave stray pencil marks behind, or a fragment of canvas showing through. I came up through the process art styles of the 1970s and 80s, and feel comfortable, still, with those ideas in certain ways.
Influences: There are many, varied and not obviously direct. The attraction is usually where I observe a deep passion, empathy, an off-centeredness, a not-of-the-mainstream, a unique replay of art history, eccentricity, etc.: Outsider art, Joan Brown, David Park, Alice Neel, Edvard Munch, Karen Mamma Andersson, Pierre Bonnard, Peter Doig, Philip Guston, Elmer Bischoff, Rene Magritte, Giorgio di Chirico, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Cornell, and others have thrilled me so much that I’ve studied them closely; they’ve become my teachers.
I am always interested in the formal elements of making a picture: Figurative, meaning recognizable forms vs. the loose brush stroke which becomes abstract, making color combinations sing, flatness contrasted with suggested spatial qualities, breaking “rules” to achieve an effect – it’s all great fun.
I have “traveled” from modernist grids on paper and canvas and site specific work which employed natural materials such as straw, grass, and dirt, through to the fresh, obsessive work of outsider and folk artists; in other words, I've tried a number of different directions. In recent years, I’ve worked to develop acrylic paintings on canvas which I think have within them the energy, if not imagery or materials, from those travels.
Website: http://www.janetnorrisartworks.com
When I begin a work my intentions are to create a poetic happening. I have a yen for the kind of magic one experiences when confronted with mysterious places, whether real or imagined, but especially the intimate spaces that are available to the excited mind. I lean toward the visionary, magical and reflective and sometimes humorous.
I often use water in my work, which serves as a metaphor for a number of possible meanings: as a primeval ritual element, a mode of travel, a threat, an escape, a precious resource, and particularly as a metaphor for life, and for death. One of the first paintings I made using water is called, "Doing A Ritual To Bring The Sea Inside". It is a rather strange little painting but it says what I wanted to convey. Zen Buddhism has led me to perceive that the human race lives within a stream, a continuous psychological, emotional, intellectual, as well as a physical mode of being; that awareness or philosophy is in the background of my making process even when I’m not thinking of it-that's the visionary part.
I depict unlike combinations, i.e., nature/culture contrasts - because that's the way they "happen" to me. I grew up in the countryside where Nature was big and dominated my young emotional life, possibly creating the dreamy side of my character. I have lived all of my adult life in an urban environment, but I always make sure that I have a place to hide from it in the back of a garden so that I can re-dream the big Nature experience. I occasionally also use humor of the gentle, ironic kind. My work method involves a chance thought, something I read, or saw, or heard, followed by the realization that I may have a painting to do. I collect images from the internet and place them in a folder: water scenes, hills, trees, boats, humans, animals, etc., are among images I finally sketch onto the canvas. I usually create the painting in my imagination, carrying it around in my head for days or weeks before I begin to make a drawing on the canvas. I think of the images which are projected on the canvas as an armature to get the work started, and it soon disappears as the painting process cancels out its intentions in a flurry of exciting color application. I often leave stray pencil marks behind, or a fragment of canvas showing through. I came up through the process art styles of the 1970s and 80s, and feel comfortable, still, with those ideas in certain ways.
Influences: There are many, varied and not obviously direct. The attraction is usually where I observe a deep passion, empathy, an off-centeredness, a not-of-the-mainstream, a unique replay of art history, eccentricity, etc.: Outsider art, Joan Brown, David Park, Alice Neel, Edvard Munch, Karen Mamma Andersson, Pierre Bonnard, Peter Doig, Philip Guston, Elmer Bischoff, Rene Magritte, Giorgio di Chirico, Joseph Beuys, Joseph Cornell, and others have thrilled me so much that I’ve studied them closely; they’ve become my teachers.
I am always interested in the formal elements of making a picture: Figurative, meaning recognizable forms vs. the loose brush stroke which becomes abstract, making color combinations sing, flatness contrasted with suggested spatial qualities, breaking “rules” to achieve an effect – it’s all great fun.
I have “traveled” from modernist grids on paper and canvas and site specific work which employed natural materials such as straw, grass, and dirt, through to the fresh, obsessive work of outsider and folk artists; in other words, I've tried a number of different directions. In recent years, I’ve worked to develop acrylic paintings on canvas which I think have within them the energy, if not imagery or materials, from those travels.
Website: http://www.janetnorrisartworks.com
