art treatise
Evolution Mode
Janet Johnson preserves an ancient art medium By Kathryn Manis
A
RTISTS HAVE composed works of art from dry pigments and chalk,
known now as soft pastels, since the dawn of civilization.
Caves in Lascaux, France, feature prehistoric paintings
rendered in this enduring medium.
Soft pastels were perhaps most notably used during the
Italian Renaissance, and later by French artists starting around
the 16th century. Now, many contemporary artists are push-ing
the medium to new and exciting heights. Among them is Leland-based painter
Janet Johnson.
Johnson is self-taught in the medium’s history and its application, and her intel-lectual,
as well as artistic, interest in the art form is apparent in the wide variety of
her practice. Some of her “paintings” — which Johnson notes is the appropriate term
for a work composed entirely in soft pastel — are loose, gestural and impressionistic.
Others are nearly photo-realistic.
One of the artist’s most recent paintings, titled “Reflections,” is indicative of her
experimentation with the
more painterly and gestural
capacity of soft pastel. The
piece, her first “roomscape,”
features a lone female fig-ure
gazing out of two large,
arched windows. She stands
behind a piano placed at the
rear of the lavish space, which
includes large columns and
tall, potted trees to frame
her standing form. The space
is bright and full of sunlight
due to the artist’s liberal use
of white and yellow pastel
to highlight the figure’s sur-roundings.
The light pours
in, illuminating her face.
The looseness of Johnson’s
strokes grants the image a
romantic and contempla-tive
mood. Mirroring the
woman depicted in the piece,
“Reflections” invites viewers to
immerse themselves in the pic-turesque
scene before them.
Janet Johnson in her studio at ArtWorks with
Reflections on the Green, 26 x 18 inches, pastel on
black sanded paper.
PHOTO BY ALLISON POTTER
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WBM december 2017