Pansies: 5
36 X 36 Inches
Oil and Encaustic on Panel
Poppies: 2
48 X 60 Inches
Oil on Panel
Poppies: 3
48 X 60 Inches
Oil on Panel
Poppies: 5
16 X 48 Inches Triptych
Oil on Panel
Red Gerberas
36 X 48 Inches
Oil on Canvas
Still Life with Peonies: 11
24 X 72 Inches
Oil on Panel
Still Life with Peonies: 12
48 X 48 Inches
Oil and Encaustic on Panel
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Notes on the exhibition
For many years Janice Mason Steeves steadfastly resisted painting
flowers, despite a lifelong fascination with their natural beauty. “I
just didn't want to be a flower painter,” the artist says. “Everybody
paints flowers. I thought, what more could I say about them?”
Fortunately, Steeves gave in to her long-repressed desire about three
years ago, and what blossomed as an impulse has flowered into an
obsession. Beginning with peonies – a flower that evoked nostalgic
memories of her grandmother – she has branched out, and moved into
formal investigations of zinnias, daisies, pansies, poppies,
chrysanthemums and anemones. And last year, she says, “I spent the
whole year painting tulips.”
The results are a tangled garden of strikingly gorgeous imagery – a
series of paintings in which the love of the flowers themselves is
balanced by the joy of exuberant painting. In works that are sometimes
extravagant and monumental, other times, serene and meditative,
Steeves has used her simple, accessible subject matter to re-energize
pictorial traditions that date back to the domestic
still-lifes
of the 17th century.
Consider, for instance, the Baroque theatricality of her larger
paintings in which enormous, blazing red-orange or fiery golden flower
heads burst out of darkened backgrounds. Stems and leaves wind and
twine in a frenzy of growth and energy. It is a drama which reminds
the artist, who became a first-time grandmother this summer, of the
excitement of birthing. “It's coming out of darkness into light, and
you feel the mystery of not being able to see what's ahead.”
In other, more traditionally composed works, small bouquets are
displayed in glass containers centered in wide frames which have been
embossed with repetitions of stylized floral motifs. The borders or
frames in these paintings are constructed from encaustic, a process in
which layers of pigmented wax are applied to wooden supports to
produce a glowing, translucent backdrop. The wax is then printed with
patterns which range from textile designs, to Turkish carpets, to
textured tin ceiling tiles. The love of pattern has a very feminine
connotation to Steeves:
“I think of the First Nations' myth about the spider woman weaving the
universe,” she says, “or the Turkish carpet patterns that are passed
down from mother to daughter. It seems like a very sacred thing, but,
of course, there's always pattern and repetition in nature, so that's
also a consideration.”
With this creative framing, Steeves also succinctly re-contextualizes
the poetic vocabulary of conventional flower painting, encoding the
blossoms into a series of signs and symbols that effectively translate
nature into culture. And, of course, by taking the venerable,
decorative image out of context, she is also instigating a
re-consideration of the canon of earlier masterworks. In the end,
however, Steeves insists that her method remains intuitive, her
intent straightforward.
“I really think that I don't approach this in an intellectual way.
It's all about the the fact that I prefer to speak in a simple
language that's easy for others to access.”
Elaine Hujer
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