NEWS FLASH: Art2Life made a short inspirational video about Janet in December, 2021.
Click here to see it.
About the Art
Sensual-expressive colour, compelling shapes, and a vibrant imagination infuse Janet Strayer's paintings with intelligent vitality. Her distinctively original paintings express moments of insight and change, dynamic connections that resonate beyond initial views. Her works have been featured in solo and juried shows, have won awards and positive press reviews, and are in public and private collections. Making art is an ongoing revelation to me, both intimate and inclusive. I create art to explore and celebrate life, inside and out, in its diversity and wonder. I seek lyrical and dramatic moments of contact between reality and imagination -- the surprises and delights of being alive to inner and outer worlds. I wish for my art to connect with others in ways that enliven the senses, the imagination, and individual experiences"
--As well as artist-direct sale of available works, Strayer's art is represented by organizations listed on CV page.
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About the Artist -- see Art2Life video
Born in Europe, educated in the US and Canada, Janet Strayer has had a life-long commitment to human development. Painting became her full-time career in 2002, with her first solo exhibition. Her working studio is on Saturna Island, B.C. She graduated Barnard College, Columbia University, was awarded an international Fulbright Scholar fellowship, obtained a PhD and post-Doc, and engaged in a rewarding academic-research career as a 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. She is a published author, has been a featured writer for an art magazine and other publications, and writes about art, travel, and creative living. See Creative Life blog here.
For full Art CV,, Representation, Recent Solos & Awards click here.
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Press Reviews
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"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)
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"Janet Strayer's art illuminates the subtlety of emotion"
(Olga Livshin, newspaper review of Child Out of Time, 2010 ).
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"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)
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"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)
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2019: Close Up on Art: Janet Strayer | Tri-City News: link
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