JANINE MIEDZIK - ARTIST INFO Born 1967, Toronto. Canada. My work distills the urban surroundings and combines with images of my travels to form a collection of impressions gleaned along the way rather than reproductions of places and things. The paintings focus on the marks of our presence, experimenting with ideas of scale, perspective and shifting horizons. Drawing on aerial views, lines that criss-cross the land merge with cracks in the sidewalk, fields of colour and organic shapes. I avoid the view of middle ground in my process, transforming the physical origin by using a language of pattern to move impressions into visual compositions. Using a variety of media including acrylic on canvas or wood panel, along with collaged elements, graphite and water-soluble pencil and polymer resin, I build layers of paint, erasing with opaque layers, leaving windows and shadows. The physical process of painting, erasing, layering to create these patterns, as if in image "bytes" mimics the process of inspiration, editing out elements in much the same way my eye gathers visual information in portioned vignettes. Although my work is varied I am probably best known for the bold patterned paintings that continue to be seen as elements in all my work. The paintings consist of fields of squares that are connected by "arteries" or "roads" between the squares. These images mimic a simplified layout of a traditional swahili home, where the rooms are built around an exposed inner courtyard. I am drawn to the lyrical quality these patterns possess. Where a colour field painting may be large and meant to be viewed up close so the viewer is immersed in an environment, my paintings can be viewed as though from a distance as if flying over an abstract landscape catching glimpses of tightly patterned cities, alongside rural fields, roads and expanses of water. [ click here for curriculum vitae ] < BACK