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Jan Smart
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Lucious instead of calorie laden, sensual instead of snackfood, celebration rather than convenience; Smart's work is a personal protest and public response to the nay-sayers and doom purveyors who seek to drag us collectively down into their private slough of despond.
Historically, Smart draws technical and aesthetic inspiration from Artemesia, Gentilleschi and the Dutch Baroque painter Willem Kalf. Contemporary artists that Smart admires include American sculpture and painter Audrey Flack and Calgary based artist and educator John Hall.
While Smart feels her work follows in the tradition of the Vanitas painters, she contemporizes her paintings using scale as a major area of exploration. This has inspired blueberries the size of basketballs and pomegranate seeds the size of panini buns. The humungous, impersonal images invoke a movie screen interpretation of intimacy while seducing the viewer through simple visual pleasure.
At the same time Smart seeks to create work that includes the concept of beauty found in nature revelling in a rich traditional approach to colour. As well, she strives to make evident the concept of “still” life by including the Asian concept of “breath”, a place for meditation in the composition.
Art is a point of celebration of community. Smart wants her paintings to reflect that sense by using food and shared personal and public experiences with it as her primary inspiration. |
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