Finding the power behind her art
By Robert L. Pincus
ART CRITIC
June 11, 2006
ARTIST: Janelle Carter
FAVORED MEDIA: paintings, collages and books
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS: solo exhibition, Urban Grind (2005); “Grrrrrl Power,” Art of Framing Gallery (2005); “New Beginnings,” Roger Lewis King Gallery (2006).
KEY COMMENT: “I paint a lot out of necessity. I'm tied to that. It's a way of seeing inside of myself.”
'In this age of hustle and slickness,” wrote artist Janelle Carter for a statement that accompanied her recent exhibition at the Urban Grind Coffeehouse in University Heights, “I attempt to make my art subtle and layered.”
Carter's images, true to her word, tend to work their way quietly into your psyche. A recent exhibition at the Roger Lewis King Gallery in Hillcrest included a medium-scale picture, mixing collage and painting, that shifts from fragments of decades-old advertising imagery to a head that fuses with a car engine. Titled “Reading the Road,” it offers up the recent past as a fluid and ghostly dreamlike picture.
“I use lots of imagery from the '70s,” observes Carter. “I'm kind of old-fashioned in that way.”
Not that she came of age in that decade. Carter is only a few years removed from college. The work's appeal is partly visual and partly historical.
“The designs are bold, with lots of contrast. I am also fascinated with the idea that it was a simpler time and how to represent that.”
Carter, who grew up in Scripps Ranch, graduated with a B.F.A. in art from UC Santa Barbara in 2002. After finishing, she traveled and and spent some time in Tasmania, Australia, where she had studied abroad during her years at UCSB.
In 2004, she returned to San Diego. And with a little hindsight, Carter is glad she came back to her hometown.
She found kindred artists and a supportive atmosphere.
“Here, you can make whatever you want,” she says. “It's open-ended.”
Early last year, Carter exhibited in the first Grrrrrl Power exhibition. The group, less a collective than a shifting roster of women artists, has been keeping a busy show schedule – and she has been one of the constants in its exhibitions. Carter curated one of its shows along with fellow artist Kelly Orange.
As a result of the Grrrrrl Power shows and her solo exhibition at the Urban Grind, there have been some sales and commissions. Carter sounds genuinely grateful for this. But she still has doubts about maintaining a balance between her personal ambitions for the work and what it takes to be a public-minded artist.
“I was getting kind of burned-out. I don't think I want to make work for well-off collectors. I'm stepping back and making some very abstract work now.”
She's been doing small drawings in books, which contain the same graceful line as the paintings from the Grrrrrl Power exhibitions, but immerse her further in pattern.
She's also taken a day job designing T-shirt art for a big locally based firm, Mad Engine.
Meanwhile, Carter is collaborating with three of her Grrrrrl Power colleagues, Ame Curtiss, Kelly Orange and Bridget Rountree. They're calling themselves lunacolab.
“We've been thinking about more experimental ways to show, with projections as we did for a one-night event recently at the Kava Lounge.”
It's all part of the education of an artist that continues after formal schooling ends.
“I'm trying to find a balance between what I learned and unlearning it. I think I trust my instincts more now.”
Robert L. Pincus: (619) 293-1831; robert.pincus@uniontrib.com