Janette Cervin
“These paintings celebrate the vitality and beauty of our clean green New Zealand landscape, whilst also drawing attention to the fragility and transience of such beauty in our contemporary world. I walk through our garden on the edge of the bush, and all I see are endless paintings. I hope by capturing the bush I can help others to preserve it.”
Painting / Visual Art
We Love…
Janette is basically like one of her paintings: a beautiful, layered, delicate person to which your response is to be drawn in. We love how visitors to the gallery find themselves standing in front of her paintings on our wall, not moving, in a dreamlike state, often jumping when we finally approach them with caution as to not wanting to disturb the world we know they have gone to. Janette’s world. Even after looking at the paintings through the day, there is more you find, yet another detail, a colour that emerges, a bird that appears….Janette is like a fairy with a brush and resin. Amazing! ARTFORM.
Currently in the gallery…
Feature
Janette Cervin’s painting practice has always reflected a deep and ongoing love for all things floral. Janette enjoyed a unique childhood immersed in nature every day. Janette’s parents’ family business was centred around a flourishing flower nursery and the distinction between home and the nursery was a moving feast of colour, shapes and textures. In response to such a profusion of stimuli it was only natural that Janette was attracted to a creative path with a focus on floral imagery. Painting was Janette’s chosen medium beginning with a successful career in craft and decorative painting techniques. This formed the context for the artist’s commitment to a formal art/academic education as an adult student.
She successfully completed a diploma in visual communication, bachelor of design (majoring in painting) and a Masters Degree Flowers in a Contemporary Painting Practice completed in 2013 at Unitec.
Janette’s layered flora and fauna paintings are created on large-scale industrial aluminized surfaces. She is interested in the juxtaposition between the hard metal surfaces and the way in which the paint can be manipulated allowing images to slip and slide effortlessly, connecting and layering flora and fauna together.
These works celebrate a collaboration of the traditionally feminine domestic space and a more ambitious contemporary approach to painting.
An illusion of depth is created by the combination of traditional painting conventions and applications of thick layers of glossy resin. This process is repeated to accentuate a three-dimensional space. Some areas are also intentionally sanded back, resulting in some flower details being suspended throughout the painting at varying depths from the surface. This ghostly hint of flowers amongst the gooey glazed layers alludes to the pentamento effect achieved by the old masters.