Janette Maxey
Featured Artist working With Oil, Gouache and Installation
My modestly sized observational paintings function like visual diary entries, capturing everyday people, places, and objects that surround me. These scenes are often familiar, yet strange, sometimes absurd. The subjects catch my eye for their stories, they suggest, and formally for their rhythm, reflection, shadow, or echoes.
Objects in my work, whether a post-it note, blue painter’s tape, or accoutrements related to the body, are chosen for their symbolic potential and universality. I’m drawn to things that are accessible and mundane yet culturally loaded. A tool, a toy, or a flower might speak to the global histories or local customs in the area where I am. These items invite open-ended storytelling that evolves over time, across different geographies, and with varying identities.
My process often begins with curiosity. I find an object or moment and investigate its form, function, and place in culture. My research informs the paintings. In them, I aim to observe and reflect on how meaning is made and shared. I work primarily in oil and gouache, and sometimes in installation. I choose what and how I paint based on subjects that allow for formal detail, such as plastic, reflective materials, and cast shadows.
Another element of my work is inspiration from other artists. When I start a painting, and it has a certain characteristic of another artist, it’s like I’m having a conversation with that artist while painting the subject. For the Post-it notes specifically, I’m thinking of Claes Oldenburg, re-contextualizing, and Agnes Martin's rhythmic and repetitive elements.
Dutch still-life painting, visual puns, cliches, deadpan humor, and living overseas are key influences in my work. I think of my paintings as a kind of quiet comedy or poetic reflection. Each artwork is a chapter in a larger narrative, trying to make sense of the world and our place in it.
Bio
An Italian American artist and curator, Janette Maxey holds a BFA from Hartford Art School in Connecticut and has also studied at the New York Studio School in New York. She has lived in Italy, Singapore, and Japan, although Connecticut is her current home. Her experiences abroad greatly inform her artwork formally and symbolically.
Janette Maxey has had artist residencies at The League Residency at Vyl (part of The Art Students League of New York), The Vermont Studio Center, Arte Studio Ginestrelle, and, most recently, The ACI residency in Corciano, Italy. She has collaborated with fellow artists, poets, and dancers in the U.S. and internationally. She is a member of Boom Contemporary on ARTSY.net, Art Byte Critique in Tokyo, Japan, and Connecticut Women Artists. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and public spaces in the USA, Singapore, Italy, and Japan, and is held in public and private collections worldwide.
For sales inquiries, please contact the artist by clicking the link below.