Skip to main content

Jane Waterous, Pop Artist

Jane Waterous, pop and semi-abstract artist works out of the Bahamas.  She is formally trained, having a B.A. in Fine Arts from Queens College, and a degree from Ontario College of Art, Toronto.  Waterous started her career as an art director at a Toronto graphic design firm in 1986.  Then went on to graduate from New York University's professional film program. 

The gallery websites' that represent her artistically talk about how enormously popular and widely collected her work is.  It is a little boastful, and it sounds like she is selling her painting's on the QVC network, but Andy Warhol was also influenced by graphic design and had the power to turn Campbell Soup into an art form.  If it is true that Waterous is an internationally noted artist and widely collected, then it is not boastful, it is just fact.  

Waterous uses many vintage cultural symbols and sometimes words to create her art.  She creates pink lip paintings and here below she uses the originally designed 1958 peace symbol as her subject.  This painting entitled "Peace" is from her "Resination" collection.


Her "Resination" paintings have an unforced plasticity quality as the paint adheres to the canvas.  It is like she uses latex paint with a spontaneous gesture that allows for soupy images.  The paint commingles into a rainbow liquid abstract that is configured into the peace symbol.  It is amazing that the drippy colors don't turn into a muddy mess. 

Many collectors love her paintings.  They don't require the viewer to contemplate the larger universe.  Instead they are happy paintings, that provide joy when looking at them, which reminds us all that it takes a great imagination to create capitalist kitsch.  It is always more difficult than it looks.  Like Warhol, she uses her graphic background to put her new artistic twist on long honored symbols and images.




Gallery Tag on the Reverse
Framed Painting: 26 X 26 Inches
Signed lower right 













Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MARCEL (Marcella Anderson) Torpedo Factory Artist

Marcella Anderson and/or Marcy Anderson (1946 - 2015) was better known as "MARCEL", a popular serigraph/silkscreen artist, at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in historic Old Town Alexandria, VA. She maintained a gallery and work space at the Torpedo Factory from 1976 to 2015. At the top of the stairs on the 3rd floor was this large light filled studio with a charming blonde woman surrounded by her silkscreens. In the early 80s, her work consisted mostly of water reptiles, fish, birds and environmental scenes. She kept with nature themes during most of her time at the studio. Her obituary stated: "Marcel was known for her bold, yet sensitive, use of color and design. Her images in all media reflected her love of nature. Her glowing color, both intense and delicate, was achieved through the use of transparent layers of color." Marcel was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and studied at the Cornish School of Allied Arts. Before arriving in the DC area, she had

Japanese Wooden Dolls: Kokeshi-Ningyo "こけし-人形"

This article is dedicated to my Japanese (nihongo) Sensei, Atsuko Kuwana, who helped me learn to speak Japanese. Collectors come in all varieties, some plan their collections, others start by chance.  I saw my first kokeshi(こけし) wooden doll in 2005 while participating in a grassroutes exchange program between the U.S. and Japan.  I was staying with a family near Nagoya and the couple’s young daughter had one.  Years later when I was named a Mike Mansfield Fellow from the U.S. government to the Japanese government, and was living in Japan, I would see them frequently at flea markets and souvenir shops next to the natural hot spring resorts in the area known as Tohoku.  Before leaving for Japan, I studied all things Japanese at the George Shultz Foreign Service Institute (FSI), including a professor that covered domestic and family life and some short statements on kokeshi.  After arriving in Japan, the National Personnel Authority ( jinjiin ) was responsible for my continued studies, b

Japanese Dolls - Ichimatsu Doll by Kyugetsu

On the top floor of the Matsuya Department Store in the Ginza shopping district of Tokyo, was a large exhibit space that rotated shows about every two weeks. It was one of my favorite places to visit, as there were fine artists and craftsmen showing their creations with the assistance of the most attentive staff and sales associates. They always exemplified elegance and class. During a drop-by-visit, there was a Ichimatsu doll exhibit. Dolls are dolls, a play thing, until they become an artform. The exhibit was part educational seminar and part wonderment. These Japanese dolls were not produced on a factory floor with production quotas. Each doll was handmade with painstaking details by an artisan that rendered a doll with personality, charm and beauty. The keeper of all knowledge, Wikipedia, describes Ichimatsu dolls this way: the doll represents little girls or boys, correctly proportioned and usually with flesh-colored skin and glass eyes. The original Ichimatsu were named a