Janet Seifert

Artist Statement, Janet Seifert With a love of unexpected beauty that transcends everyday life, my acrylic paintings explore the humanist concept of aesthetics, expressing and illuminating the human spirit through a sense of the beautiful. In the spirit of experimental discovery, I practice the technique of abstract improvisation, a contemplative approach to painterly expression born of abstract expressionism. Using gestural brushwork with the flowing elegance of fluid acrylic pigment, the process is a visual meditation, colored with insights and notions of the moment. It's alchemy of a certain sort, working with intuition and materials in a way that have no predictable outcome. For me it is a journey into the mysteries of creativity. As part of this process, I search for a deeper understanding of the visual language of abstraction, including how one’s imagination and sense of wonder are activated. My investigations center on the interactions between color, form, line and movement, and how these elements coalesce into coherent compositions that speak meaningfully to both the viewer and artist.

Janet Seifert: artist bio After a long career as a graphic designer, I returned to the creative work that first inspired me while completing a degree in studio art. In 2002 I became an artist-in-residence at the Mendocino Art Center in northern California where I created a body of work that included painting, drawing and printmaking. I began with a series of small abstract landscapes using oil-based colored pencils and then, to reacquaint myself with painting media and techniques, I enrolled in a series of painting workshops. After experimenting with watercolor, egg tempera, oils, oil pastel and mixed media, I began a survey of printmaking techniques and explored serigraph prints, collagraphs, linocuts, etchings and monotypes. I created a series of improvised abstract prints using a mixed media process of monotype printmaking and colored pencils. At a 2004 workshop on abstract improvisational painting taught by an accomplished artist who had studied with Helen Frankenthaler, I found the painting technique that I use today - painting pure abstractions that embody my love of color, form and design. Having recently moved to New York,  I previously had a painting studio in San Francisco's Mission District and exhibited in a variety of venues in the Bay area and beyond. My paintings and drawings are represented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery at the Fort Mason Center.