Artists who move me - Jane Filer

I want to take a moment and share some art with you.  Not just any art but art that sings to me, encourages me, inspires me.  I want to show you the art that makes me want to paint.  You might be surprised by this art because it is so different from my own.  Just wait and see....

Artist Jane Filer.

Lucid Dreams  2015  Jane Filer

Jane Filer is an award winning artist from North Carolina. She paints primarily with acrylic paint on stretched canvas.  It looks like her art can be small, like 8x10", or get really huge like 5' x 15'.   From what I have seen the majority seems to be in the 24-36" range.  I have only seen her art on the internet.  Jane has been showing since 1981 and lately her work can be found at Tyndall Galleries - NC, The Haen Galery - NC, The White Gallery - CT, Bill Hester Fine Art - NM and The Mahler Fine Art - NC.  It is my understanding that her paintings will usually sell out before the art show opens to the public.  A lot of galleries typically have pre-shows where they invite the major collectors in to preview the art before the doors open to the general public on opening night.  Sometimes these pre-shows are the night before, a couple of hours before or could be as much as a week before the opening night.  To have a show sell out before opening night is a great accomplishment and goes to show you just how much her collector base loves her art.

Title unknown 2011 Jane Filer

Most of Jane's art is extremely colorful, the examples I have shown are some of her less colorful works.  I tend to enjoy the muted ones the most, so this is what I chose to show.

There are many aspects of her art that I love.  I'd like to share some of these with you.

One aspect is her use of various colors to block something in.  For example look at the grey horse above.  Is the horse grey?  I also see bright blues, pinks and greens in there.  Isn't that awesome!  This way of using multiple colors within a confine is something I strive for in my work as well so naturally when I see others doing a superb job of it I take notice.

Hither and Twan 2017  Jane Filer

Another aspect of Jane's art that caught my eye is her drawing style.  Everything is simplified almost crude (I do not intend this as an insult).  I love the flat non-dimensional way she draws in buildings, trees and horizon lines.  Even the animals, as seen in the image above, share this simplicity.  I find this type of work very intriguing.  In my personal work I may try and blend some of this simplicity, raw mark making in, but I'll never go to the extreme that Jane does.  When I paint something I want a balance between non dimensional and dimensional. I want you to be able to recognize things and be drawn in but at the same time I want a dream like or other worldly feeling.

Crossing the Country 2016  Jane Filer

I also like how Jane uses texture and various paint qualities in her work.  Above we see what looks like dripping paint from the subjects at the bottom.  We also see rough paint or worn paint, like in the water in the upper left hand corner.  Using textures like this is actually easy.  If you go into an art store you can find a whole slew of things to mix in with your paint to make texture.  I believe a true artist doesn't rely on these gimmicks to make their work.  They use them as a tool to enhance only.  Jane's work is very professionally controlled.  There is texture and such intermixed within the painting but it doesn't over power or detract from the overall image.  It's very nicely done.  I play with texture too and there are times when I am scrapping away the texture because I have blown it, it's too much.  When I see other artist controlling it, it really grabs my attention.

To see more of Jane Filer's art you can visit her website at www.janefiler.com 

Take a minute and compare her work with some of mine. Here's a link to my web site.  www.larryreinhart.com/my-obsessions
I know you can find the differences, but can you see the similarities too?

I hope you enjoyed today's post as much as I did.

Cheers,

Larry