A Conversation with April Featured Artist Jane D'Angelo

Can you tell us what inspired you to begin painting still lives?

I have done a lot of still life painting over the years. In fact, I stuck to that genre exclusively the first few years of my painting career, before branching out to other subject matter. For the most part those paintings were very traditional in nature. While I am still very much a representational painter, the growing popularity of contemporary art has inspired me to experiment with a more contemporary approach. Still life painting has provided the perfect vehicle for that.

These paintings are more contemporary than Impressionistic. For example, you’ve flattened out perspective, some of the pieces are flat instead of curved, and some shadows are missing. What are you trying to achieve with this approach?

Yes, in these paintings I am governed by the overall balance of design, color and shapes more than I am painting things true to life. Flattening out many of the objects, skewing the perspective, limiting shadows, using complimentary colors (I obviously love blue!) has resulted in a more contemporary, interpretive painting that I hope is fun to look at. Architecture has always been a big part of my landscape paintings and that has carried over to the still lifes in that I try to depict a sense of a room, rather than just a tabletop with objects arranged on it.

You’ve said you have lots of ideas for how to move forward with this line of work. Can you share any ideas with us?

Going forward, I do have a number of ideas I would like to explore and I expect my still life work to evolve. Reflective surfaces, more architectural elements, different color pallets are a few things that come to mind.

People love your barn paintings. Do you intend to continue painting more of those in the future?

I will probably concentrate on still life for a while, but will certainly continue painting the barns and Midwest landscapes. I have found that mixing subject matter is a good thing for me. It helps to keep a “fresh eye”, an art expression meaning if you look at the same thing for too long, you can’t see it objectively. And I think my paintings in general are fresher as a result of changing things up now and then.

COVID-19 has been going on for more than a year. Has it affected your work or process and, if so, how?

I think all artists would tell you how lucky they have been to have their art to focus on during the pandemic. It has given us more time to do what we love to do. That being said, I definitely think Covid and the resulting monotony of everyday life was a big factor in my venturing into something new with my painting and having the extra time gave me the chance to study and experiment.