Summertime art, if there ever was such a thing...

Janet Fish is a contemporary American artist who seems to like the same things in art that I do: color, and unexpected composition. And more color.

I was just reading up on Ms. Fish and found out that she grew up in Bermuda. It got me thinking about something that I’ve always loved about studying art: how a sense of place comes out in an artist’s work. Studying the history of art is really just like studying history, but with nice pictures in the text books and fewer battles to remember.

In the case of Janet Fish’s work, her time in Bermuda seems to me to have an impact in most of her work. This piece, Tropical Still Life, is the most obvious example (my school had a print of it, and for three years every time I walked by it I smiled, especially on those cloudy, bleak days that seem to be the only weather in winter in southeast Michigan). I love the use of color, first and foremost. You can’t ignore the color. I once wrote an article for that same school’s newspaper about this print, but it was printed in black and white and hardly anyone even recognized the piece.

But the composition is also interesting. She places a lot of weight directly in the foreground with the halved fruit, and the orange in the center of the work is also the darkest spot which makes the eye perceive that spot as receding. Finally she places palm fronds in the top corner of the work, so that it seems you’re peeking underneath the branch to look at the little fruit spread. And with the endless squiggles, even appearing under the orange glass dish, you almost miss the happy little bird in the top right corner. The eye sort of circles around and around the work, following the curve of the bananas, and she doesn’t really let you rest on anything.

That activity of the eye is an accomplishment for a still life painter – and I think its what makes her paintings and prints so appealing.

That, and the skill she has in painting glass. Take a look at the work below. You really cannot debate the skill here – reflection upon reflection, behind and in front of layers of glass. Have you ever tried painting glass? Even drawing it? I find it next to impossible to get it to look remotely realistic. But even in this work which is so much about reflections on glass, her use of color is still so striking, so vibrant.

Interested in buying yourself a print? I believe this is her dealer.