About the Art
Janet Strayer's paintings celebrate the vital variety and wonder of actual an imagined realities,. They always contain surprises, delights, and invitations to discover or recall the beauty and forces in and around us. A select range of styles, from abstract-expressive to imaginative representations, is used to express moments of physical and psychological insight and change. Strayer's paintings create open narratives, inviting viewer participation and dynamic connections that resonate beyond initial views.
The sensual-expressive qualities of colour, paint, and movement mingle with a vibrant imagination to infuse Strayer's paintings with an intelligent animism. "I seek lyrical or dramatic moments of contact and contrast between reality and imagination -- the surprises of being human and alive to inner and outer worlds,, whether it's nature or desire".
Her works have won awards, been featured in books and media, and appear in public and private collections. They have been the focus of solo shows, as well as appearing in many juried exhibitions (click for CV)..
In addition to non-commission artist-direct sale of specific works,, Strayer's art is represented by organizations listed below For sale, exhibition, and other enquries, please use the contact form on this page or email info@janetstrayer.com
About the Artist
Emigrating from Europe to the US, then to Canada as an adult, Janet Strayer has a life-long commitment to exploring human development along many fronts. Loving and collecting art from an early age, it was not her full-time career until 2002, with her first solo exhibition. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University in New York, was an international Fulbright Scholar, and pursued a rewarding academic-research career as a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University 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 maintains an online blog about art, travel, and creative living. Click here for Janet Strayer's Art CV.
For comments or inquiries, prices, commissions, and visits to her studio on Saturna Island, please contact Janet at
Current Clients/Representation: Latest Solo Exhibitions (prior ones listed on CV):
VGH-UBC Art Foundation 2019-2020: Zack Gallery, Vancouver: Wings of Imagination
Saatchi Online Centennial Theatre, N.Vancouver: Being There Federation of Canadian Artists Place des Arts, Vancouver: Flow
NVanArts Rental Programme
Press Reviews
"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. One could say of these paintings—and of her entire oeuvre—that they 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)
2018:Janet Strayer: Flow Exhibition | Daily Hive Vancouver: link
2019: Close Up on Art: Janet Strayer | Tri-City News: link