Artist Jan Gardner

Jan Gardner is a professional artist based in Conwy. Jan loves colour! She creates vibrant `mixed media` images based on her responses and observations and her fascination with colour, form, texture and mark-making. Jan supplies her original, unique work to galleries for exhibitions, numerous art fairs around the U.K and is gathering an audience worldwide. She has received several national awards for her art-work. “Jan shows us the magic in what we see everyday” a collector`s quote.

Jan is always experimenting with new ideas which have been developing in her imagination for years and are now making their way into the wonderful wide-world. Jan studied at Winchester School of Art gaining a B.A. Honours in Printed Textiles and A.T.D post-graduate studies. She has worked as `Artist in Residence` in a wide range of education, gallery and health establishments. She exhibits her `mixed media` paintings across the U.K. and worldwide including London, England Scotland, Ireland and Wales, mainland Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

In 2007 she was awarded an Arts Council of Wales project grant titled `Colour Secrets` to research contemporary producers` practice for the processing of modern pigment production and also to explore the origins of her palette of colour in history, which enabled her to explore the source of her palette and the ancient and contemporary manufacture of pure pigment in Milan, New York and Geneva.

Jan was born and brought up in North Wales and spent much of her early years wandering the lanes and hills around her home. It was here that the light, space and colours that inhabit her work first became an influence. Drawing on these memories and experiences of special places and her later travels in Europe, Morocco and the U.S.A.; she crafts vivid and atmospheric works. Colours that fly in from emotion and passion. They relay a deep connection with the varied, differing landscapes from which they evolve.The absolute joy and life affirming quality of her work is gleaned from her desire to look further, texture, mark-making and layering becomes apparent. One of the most noticeable aspects of Jan`s work is her use of rich, magical colours, subtle nuances with the range of water-based media, something that has pre-occupied her for many years, linking the response to pure colours and the spiritual.

Public
Halton Borough Council
Norton Priory Museum
Winsor and Newton
Cheshire Arts and Exhibition Service
Greenpeace
Born Free Foundation
Lord and Lady Crickhowell
Renal Unit, Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Bodelwyddan Hospital Trust
Flintshire County Council

Corporate
Talacre Beach Parks
Hayling Distribution- Hayling Island
Grosvenor Nuffield Hospital - Chester
Second Skin - Perth, Australia

Aberdeen Art Fair
Le Chiele - Oriel Ynys Mon
Windsor Art Fair
Resipole Gallery,Strontian, Scotland
Mythical Marks and Colour Magic, Nantwich Museum Millenium Gallery
Crossing Borders-Moray Arts Centre, Scotland
Mythical Marks - Oriel Caffi Croesor
Reading Contemporary Art Fair
4 Printmakers – Oriel Theatr Clwyd Cymru
Edinburgh Art Fair
Love Art Contemporary Art-Urbis, Manchester
Harrogate Art Fair
Affordable Art Fair, Bristol (The Stark Gallery)
Printfest, Ulverston, Cumbria
The Albany Gallery, Cardiff
Brighton Art Fair
Memorial Gallery, Wrexham Aspects of Landscape
Steve Brake Memorial show, Denbigh
Art Ireland, Dublin
Canterbury Festival, The Stark Gallery
The Affordable Art Fair, London rep. The Stark Gallery
The Lowry, Salford
Cork Art Fair, with The Stark Gallery, London
Le Roquebru, France
21st Century Watercolour, Bankside Gallery, London

Recent work inspired by the rich variety of my surroundings, gardens, landscapes, home-based views and visits further a field . I work from sketchbooks for reference ideas, drawn from observation, on-site visual note taking. I gather lots of source material and scour through previous work.

When I am studio based I like to work listening to music and this can add to the creative process. I love to combine ideas using suggestions from lyrics, stories and memories.

My `mixed media` incorporates acrylics, acrylic inks, gouache, pen and ink, water-colour crayons and soft pastels and collage. All work is created using artists` grade materials and is executed on archival grade acid-free hand-made cotton rag watercolour paper.

Since my B.A.Hons Degree Winchester School of Art and post-graduate studies my work has had concurrent themes exploring environments, enclosed and open, real and imaginary dream/lyric- scapes – using the materials can change the core of the subject matter.

The mark-making and the jig-saw process with collage material offers less structured compositions. Expressive use of colour as the starting point on the initial ground is used as a base for mark-making with a variety of tools.(brushes, sponges, cloths, pens, wood tools, sticks, sand –paper).

Rarely is the end piece planned, but through a process of intuitive exploration of the media which evolves into the finished piece, they become visual poems. My works are primarily `celebrations` of this life experience.

“ Painting like all poetry has a part in the divine, the living atmosphere, you feel it in the nights when you look into the dark sky, and from this you learn there is another world” Marc Chagall.

Jan exhibits her work across the U.K. mainland Europe and a following worldwide. Jan was awarded an Arts Council of Wales (2007) lottery grant to support her research into her palette of colours. Jan Gardner`s work features in many private, public and corporate collections. She continues, as an artist, to inspire a wide audience with her unique work and abiding enthusiasm via exhibiting and her `exhilarating` workshops.

Please contact Jan using the online form here. Carefully read and make sure you agree to the policies regarding the submission of data before you click on the submit button.