Jan Brandt: Botanica Imaginaria
@ Water Street Studios
160 S Water St, Batavia, IL 60510
Opening Friday, January 13th, at 6PM
On view through Sunday, February 5th
Jan Brandt: Botanica Imaginaria
Artist Statement and Bio:
The fiber installations and paintings of Botanica Imaginaria have grown from artist Jan Brandt’s lifelong fascination with plant life. Brandt ‘s aim is to transform the gallery space with saturated colors and contrasting textures with the use of abstracted interpretations of botanical themes. She forms petals, vines, and leaves, oftentimes using thrifted and gifted materials. The abundantly bountiful sculptures and vines allow for a sense of surreal, childlike curiosity and wonder.
Paintings of various sizes serve as specimens within this ecosystem, inviting closer observation. Their surfaces, marked with dimensional fabric paint, matte chalk paint, and glitter, reveal depth and form composed of layered linework. The adjacent colors are made to be mixed in the viewer’s eye, echoing the textural and colorful components of plant life. To develop this layered visual vocabulary, Brandt has drawn on a diverse history of floral motifs, including the carefully observed details in 18th century botanical drawings, the patterning of Jacobean tapestries, and the flat abstraction of Swedish and Japanese floral design.
Jan Brandt is an artist working in mixed-media, textiles, printmaking, and painting. She holds a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, both from Illinois State University in Normal, IL. Brandt is the owner of Jan Brandt Gallery in Normal, IL. Brandt’s work has been shown across the country, including New York City, San Francisco and Davis, CA, Chicago and surrounding communities, Indianapolis and Evansville, IN, Oberlin, OH, Boston, MA, as well as the Central Illinois communities of Peoria, Champaign-Urbana, Springfield, and Bloomington- Normal.
Also opening the same evening at Water Street is Perennial Optimism by David Dow and FLOWER BOMBi by Jim Neeley (Wisecracker Studio) in The Kane County Magazine Gallery.
Layers, an exhibition by Krystal Kay Lyon and K. Hieronymus W. will be shown in the second floor gallery of Water Street.
Water Street Studios granted artist and curator Jan Brandt, of Bloomington, IL to choose artists from her Central Illinois community to show concurrently with her body of work. She chose artists whose work she finds inspiring and she believes would provide a lively conversation with hers.
Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Jan Brandt
Jan Brandt Gallery
309 287 4700
Official Website
More events on this date
Tags: Batavia, Botanica Imaginaria, IL, Jan Brandt, Water Street Studios
« previous event
next event »