The Arts Council's Spotlight Gallery features exhibits by Vermont visual artists. Exhibits generally run for a two month period.
The gallery is open to the public and located in the corridor and conference room of our offices at 136 State Street in Montpelier. Please note that there are times when the conference room is not available due to meetings in progress. However, the corridor exhibit is always open during regular business hours.
The Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Janet Wormser's exhibit will be on display in the Spotlight Gallery through the end of February 2012. A reception for the artist will be held on February 10 from 4:00 to 7:00PM as part of Montpelier's Art Walk.
Artist Statement
After many years of painting in a naturalistic manner I felt too confined and wanted to try painting more abstractly. That made sense given that I have long been attracted to painters such as Bonnard and de Kooning. Also, it seemed to me that the line between abstractionism and naturalism was rather artificial. I believe our everyday vision encompasses abstraction. I was also interested in decorative pattern of the sort that one might find in tiles in Italian churches. It seemed to me that there was something about ornament that resembles something that is alive—nature being an infinity of patterns—and like the force of life itself. Then, too, I wanted to explore color and the degree to which it could evoke mood, time, and place. So in these paintings I have tried to engage those concerns. Some paintings are more about color and shape; some are concerned with decorative pattern. There are some that are more concerned with form than others and some that straddle the border of naturalism. All the paintings are reflections of my decades-long aesthetic journey.
Artist Bio
In 1983 I saw an exhibit of the work of Fairfield Porter and was inspired to put the practice of art in my life. I loved the color, freshness and intelligence of Porter’s paintings. In the meantime I was married, raising two children and living off-the-grid in central Maine where I lived for over twenty-three years—gardening, learning to do most everything by hand and eventually going out into the world and becoming a home health nurse. Since I did not have any art instruction available to me, I decided to work my way through the course set out in The Natural Way to Draw by Nicolaides. I used my family as models and worked my way through the whole book. I also attended life drawing sessions when I could and began to paint in a realistic manner.
When my husband and I moved to Hallowell, Maine, I got further involved in painting: showing my work in local galleries, mounting a solo exhibit and participating in juried shows. When I moved to Vermont in 2007 I realized I was no longer interested in painting literally and started to find my way into abstract painting. To that end I attended Vermont Studio Center three times. There I was able to gradually evolve into a style that engaged and reflected my concerns. I try to paint each day now in my house in Cabot, Vermont.