Janet McWilliam

Janet McWilliam https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk Janet McWilliam Wed, 25 Mar 2020 10:41:46 +0000 https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk en Intro https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk/Intro Tue, 24 Mar 2020 11:49:53 +0000 Janet McWilliam https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk/Intro Artist Statement Janet’s practice operates within the field of abstract painting using bold colour.  Texture and mark marking are important to the practice but a love of colour, unites it.  Her pieces of work often include clues to the themes undertaken and are either embedded or stamped in. Items incorporated have included fabric, papers, ribbons, string, shoelaces, sawdust, shavings and flowers, leaves and mud etc, depending on the focus of the piece. The mediums used in the work too can vary from acrylic paint and inks to graphite and watercolour pencils or water-based crayon as well as oil paint and different gels.  The work ranges from very large to tiny sized pieces. Sometimes the shape and form of the work also varies; she has rolled paint onto 200cm long plastic ventilation tubes and on to lengths of silk (up to 11m long), and has painted onto household bricks, household fabric and loose canvas, found wood, or rolls of paper, as well as the more traditional box canvas and artist’s paper. The physicality of the making is fundamental to the practice. Within the practice there is a common drive to seek contrast.  Much of the work embraces aspects of chance/chaos, tests ideas around colour theory, and attempts to gently push boundaries in the way paint is applied or indeed scraped off. Biography & CV Latest Work https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk/Latest-Work Wed, 25 Mar 2020 09:46:01 +0000 Janet McWilliam https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk/Latest-Work Latest Work <img width="1200" height="675" width_o="1200" height_o="675" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/28f289fe9287b7a789ce35d3272f637236fbb44f1631f0d4e57194a6a283c98d/Layers---me-painting.jpeg" data-mid="247029598" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/28f289fe9287b7a789ce35d3272f637236fbb44f1631f0d4e57194a6a283c98d/Layers---me-painting.jpeg" /> <img width="3507" height="3609" width_o="3507" height_o="3609" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/5e0c943a2318ddc193a282f954fa1b2e98148cbcaa720355c4dbe550f8da6288/Abundance.jpeg" data-mid="247029601" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/5e0c943a2318ddc193a282f954fa1b2e98148cbcaa720355c4dbe550f8da6288/Abundance.jpeg" /> View All Works 'Lockdown' https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk/Lockdown Wed, 25 Mar 2020 10:41:46 +0000 Janet McWilliam https://janetmcwilliam.co.uk/Lockdown References: Bennett, J (2010) Vibrant Matter.  USA: Duke University Press.<img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/75b86b78ec31c0041e310d2a72e68b83634c08e8299d6454596d769b2cc50147/26-March-20---UnderCover---Contained-by-Janet-McWilliam.jpg" data-mid="69595236" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/75b86b78ec31c0041e310d2a72e68b83634c08e8299d6454596d769b2cc50147/26-March-20---UnderCover---Contained-by-Janet-McWilliam.jpg" /> ‘Lockdown’ 26th March 2020 We started ‘Lockdown’ a couple of days ago.  There is a strange eeriness about it all.  Everything looks the same on the outside.  The garden is still there.  Spiders and ants are still walking about.  But outside the ‘people element’ of the neighbourhood, seemed to be missing, or maybe it is just ‘less’ because I feel it should be less, and today I am looking.  But I think I can hear fewer cars.  I can see fewer people walking their dogs.  And yet I know people are still there, somewhere. I have been reading ‘Vibrant Matter’ by Jane Bennett (Bennett, 2010), about materiality and how things on this planet aren’t always about the human first and centre. She says, ‘...the materialist points out that culture is not of our own making, infused as it is by biological, geological, and climatic forces’, (Bennett, 2010:115).  It seems truer more than ever now we are tucked away in our flats and houses; the world simply carries on.  Layers of life are still moving, and operating as before, perhaps even more freely. We have been given a project to focus on.  ‘Under(cover)’ is its title. We are asked to respond to our current environments and consider how this may affect our work.  Specifically, ‘how it might provoke our art practice outside usual habitual, ritualistic working methodologies’. I normally work large scale and rarely within my ‘home’ because I simply don’t have the space.  But I was up for the challenge. I started with a mind-map (several actually), plotting the various steps and stages that were now affecting us.  It was a relief somehow to recognize them and then move on.   I kept within the same area of my recent study namely ‘control, chance and process.’ I worked with the materials I found around me.  My workbench and easels were elsewhere, so I improvised.  I had paint and I had other strips and strands of material.  It was going to be alright. <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/75b86b78ec31c0041e310d2a72e68b83634c08e8299d6454596d769b2cc50147/26-March-20---UnderCover---Contained-by-Janet-McWilliam.jpg" data-mid="69595236" border="0" alt="‘Under(cover’) - Contained, Apr 2020Household cardboard tube, acrylic paint on artificial grass" data-caption="‘Under(cover’) - Contained, Apr 2020 Household cardboard tube, acrylic paint on artificial grass" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/75b86b78ec31c0041e310d2a72e68b83634c08e8299d6454596d769b2cc50147/26-March-20---UnderCover---Contained-by-Janet-McWilliam.jpg" /> <img width="1080" height="1080" width_o="1080" height_o="1080" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/92b7bbc2f73e2db7ef2651647cf61f5fac1f8c48cee415e1bea92932250bd659/26-March-20---Contained-April-2020.jpg" data-mid="69595234" border="0" alt="‘Under(cover’) - Contained, Apr 2020Household cardboard tube, acrylic paint - Approx. A4" data-caption="‘Under(cover’) - Contained, Apr 2020 Household cardboard tube, acrylic paint - Approx. A4" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/92b7bbc2f73e2db7ef2651647cf61f5fac1f8c48cee415e1bea92932250bd659/26-March-20---Contained-April-2020.jpg" /> References: Bennett, J (2010) Vibrant Matter.  USA: Duke University Press.