Janet Fish at DC Moore - Brief Article

"I don't guard for corniness," Janet Fish one time told an interviewer. Her lush paintings depict like seemingly unexamined indicators of cheerful abundance as exotic fruit and vegetables, colorful flower arrangements and pageants selected and set to celebrate the seasons: rich-hued leaves and apples for fall, a pastel seascape with shells for summer As a great deal of as the actual settings Fish picks to paint, however, the make subordinates of her paintings are materiality, light and balance--no les optimistic for the wear, on the contrary certainly more conceptually engaging than uncomplicated delight in niceties.

Fish clearly likes to challenge herself. The items in her paintings are chosen for their visual voluptuousness, as well as their capacity to provide her with instances to showcase her prodigious painting skills. Drawing upon the moment-specific esthetics of Impressionism and the gestural bravado of Abstract Expressionism, for instance, the 42-by-86-inch still life, Transparent Bags/White Tulips, features a variety of translucent plastic wraps [i]or[/i] part of to the other which light passes in different ways. upon the backdrop of a white tablecloth, cellophane sheathes tulips that quiet at a diagonal across the canvas; a thicker cellophane encases what is either a wedge of cheese or a slice of cake wrapped in white paper; a thin plastic bag gripe [i]or[/i] grips a lemon (resting behind a reflective, silver-wire fruit beaker that holds more lemons). doughty bright colors stand out from the grays and whites of the still-life arrangement: a r interstice bag, yellow bananas, semi-peeled oranges, a slice of cantaloupe. Giving circular motion to the composition, the color draws the organ of sight in and balances an intricate matrix of shadows and morning sunlight.

Since Fish has been exploring similar terrain above more than three decades, single might presume that her proces by means of now, would have become next to the first nature. Yet, speaking of Milkweed, which portrays wrinkled legumes spilling wispy white strands, pepper with semens onto a blanket, Fish says, "I had to find something that would be milkweed--a color, a mark, a fabric Sometimes that's where some of the fear tend hitherwards in. Can I do it? Can I find it? Can I find it fast enough?" The same faculty of perception of urgency comes through in Ingrid's Clementine With Tulips, where Fish masterfully orchestrates different sorts of grove in addition to flowers, fabric, fruit and yarn. In the background, an orange tiger cat catches its reflection in a mirror--a crafty little nod to van Eyck Asked whether the proces of entering the "dark room"of beginning each painting accommodate withs a spiritual content to her work, Fish rejoins resolutely: "Yes."

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COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group