About the Art
Sensual-expressive colour and movement mingle with a vibrant imagination to infuse Janet Strayer's paintings with an intelligent vitality. "I seek lyrical or dramatic moments of contact between reality and imagination -- the surprises of being alive to inner and outer worlds." Strayer's art invites us to the worlds within and around us, seeking diverse beauty, meaning, and
delight. In both abstract and imaginative representations, her paintings expresses moments of insight and change, dynamic connections that resonate beyond initial views. Her works have won awards, had positive press reviews, been featured in books, media, and are in both public and private collections. They have been the focus of solo shows and many juried exhibitions.
--As well as Artist-Direct sale of available works, Strayer's art is represented by organizations listed below. For enquiries, please click here.
About the Artist (click for Art CV,)
Born in Europe, educated in the US and Canada, Janet Strayer has had a life-long commitment to human development. Loving and collecting art from early on, painting was not her full-time career until 2002, with her first solo exhibition. She graduated Barnard College, Columbia University, was an international Fulbright Scholar, and pursued a rewarding academic-research career as a published professor of psychology in Canada. She has lived, worked, and travelled in many regions of the world, experiences that, along with her personal and professional background, find their way into her art. Her working studio is on Saturna Island, B.C. She has also been a featured writer for Arts Avenue magazine and writes online about art, travel, and creative living. See her Creative Life blog here.
To visit her studio on Saturna Island, please contact Janet directly here.
Current Clients/Representation:
Amego Foundation,
VGH-UBC Art Foundation
Saatchi Online Recognized Artist
Federation of Canadian Artists
NVanArts Rental Programme
Singulart
Recent Solo Exhibitions, Awards: 2019-2020 (prior ones on CV):
Jurors Choice Award, Arts Council, Southern Gulf Islands Regional Exhibition
Zack Gallery, Vancouver:Wings of Imagination
Centennial Theatre, N.Vancouver: Being There
Place des Arts, Vancouver: Flow
Recent International Juried Shows 2020-2021
Painting on the Edge, Federation Gallery, Vancouver, 2021 and 2020 exhibits
Annual International Representational Exhibit, Federation Gallery, Vancouver, 2020
Press Reviews
"A leap of passion .... The pieces in this exhibit are themed around a fascination with flight, discovery and freedom, expressed through vivid colours and playful imagery" (Kristy Dockstader review, The Source, Vol.20:10, 2020)
"Janet Strayer's art illuminates the subtlety of emotion"
(Olga Livshin, newspaper review of Child Out of Time, 2010 ).
"In her paintings you can find more than beautiful and harmoniously overlapping colors. The paintings provide a distinct/different reality...There is movement and dialogue. They are not paintings to pass by but invite a critical look and thoughts of dreams and adventures.(Tatiana Oseguera, The Art of Making Art, Sin Fronteras, newspaper review, Nov., 2014 )
"The logic of dreams is endemic in her work.... These painting, and ..her entire oeuvre re-enchant." ( Jean-François Renaud, curator, Of Fables and Myths, 2015)
"Janet Strayer’s brushwork is animated and free, gesturing with a dynamism... paint is close to living matter. Actualized here is the vital impulse subtending the entirety of Nature and conjuring life forces—a “plane of immanence,” to quote from Gilles Deleuze...Existential vitality is explicitly addressed in a play of pure and multiple affects arising from our experience of these works."(J-F. Renaud, curator, Esprit, 2017)
2019: Close Up on Art: Janet Strayer | Tri-City News: link