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Jane Smaldone Biography
| Jane
Smaldone was born in New York City in 1953 and currently lives
and works in the Boston area with her husband Mark and daughter
Isabel, who has become one of her favorite subjects. She attended
the State University of New York and attained her BFA in painting
from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1976.
Smaldone's
paintings combine her long-standing interest in landscape, still
life and portraiture, interweaving the genres in a personal
style inspired by art historical traditions as diverse as Chinese
landscape painting, Surrealism and Folk Art.
She says about her work, "The Flowers, portraits and landscapes
that I have been working on are inspired in part by a dialogue
between the real and the imagined. My subjects tend to be those
important to my life and evocative for me in a visual, emotional
or psychic way.
"I'm
not interested in representation, but in transformation —transformation
as it relates to past events, the perceived present and the
imagined future. Painting is a process for me through which
to explore the poetic nature of these transformations and a
way to express the unseen forces on our lives."
Smaldone's
work is included in many private, corporate and public collections
internationally, including the Danforth Museum, the Peabody Essex
Museum and Wellington Management. She has had numerous solo shows
in the United States and Canada and participated in many group
shows. |
Artist
Statement
| "
A dialogue between the real and the imagined inspires the flowers,
portraits and landscapes that I have been working on. I'm often
struck by how the two can merge or one becomes the other: My
subjects tend to be those important to my life and evocative
for me in a visual, emotional or psychic way.
"I'm
not interested in representation, but in transformation. Transformation
as it relates to past events, the perceived present and the
imagined future.
"I tend to paint my daughter, Isabel, as larger
than life. In a way she becomes a vessel for all my hopes, concerns
and beliefs, not only for her, but for the larger world as well.
Her transformation from a baby to sixteen years old has been
truly remarkable. Painting is a process for me, through which
to explore the poetic nature of these transformations and a
way to express the unseen forces on our lives.
"I rarely
work from sketches, preferring to start directly on the canvas
and relying on images from my mind's eye and from memory. I
like to allow the more unconscious elements to filter through
and exist with the more intentional aspects of the work.
"Sometimes,
I use photographs that I've taken for visual information that
I will use in a composite way (hands, faces, trees, sky, etc).
Color is extremely important to me in developing an idea and
often generates a sense of place and purpose, and a way 'into'
the painting." -- Jane Smaldone |
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100 Boston Painters celebrates the wide-ranging talents, approaches, and personalities of the vibrant world of Boston arts. A labor of love by George Mason University Art Professor Chawky Frenn, this exciting new book features the work of artists selected by an extensive review of Boston arts, both past and present.
Featuring the work of Jane Smaldone
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Galleries
Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Massachusetts
Gallery Bergelli,
Larkspur, California
Loch
Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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