Gateway

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Acrylic on canvas
36" h x 48" w

1988

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This piece represents the artist's introduction into what would become one of her favorite styles of abstract painting.  As an engineering student at Harvey Mudd College, she had access to classes at the other Claremont schools, including painting at Pomona College. Janet took several classes from Karl Benjamin, who specialized in geometric abstractions, painted in a hard-edge colorist style.  

The first assignment was to create a grid and paint each region a distinct solid color, and to explore the boundaries and interactions between the edges. Several students who wanted to do landscapes were miserable, but Janet enjoyed the project so much that she continued to work in this style, and explored other types of grids to study depth effects. 

This painting, "Gateway", was the second piece she created in his class.  The design was planned on graph paper with colored pens before it was re-created on canvas with paint.  The original sketch is included in the set of images on this page.