Janet Werner

Janet Werner’s work as a painter focuses on the fictional portrait as a vehicle to explore notions of subjectivity and desire. Her paintings operate within and against the genre of conventional portraiture, taking found images of anonymous figures...

Janet Werner’s work as a painter focuses on the fictional portrait as a vehicle to explore notions of subjectivity and desire. Her paintings operate within and against the genre of conventional portraiture, taking found images of anonymous figures in popular culture and imbuing them with fictional personalities. The process of painting is a way of investigating the iconic power of the image, invoking imagination, memory, and projection to invest the nameless figure with human subjectivity and emotion. The final paintings are composite portraits that retain aspects of the original while also embodying notions of transformation, innocence and loss. Solo exhibitions include the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal (Montreal), Art Gallery of Guelph (Guelph), Anat Ebgi (Los Angeles), Whatiftheworld Gallery (Cape Town) and Plug In ICA (Winnipeg). Group exhibitions include AXENEO7 (Gatineau), MASS MoCA (North Adams) and Arsenal contemporary (New York). A solo survey exhibition organized by the Kenderdine Art Gallery, University of Saskatchewan, toured to five locations in Canada from 2013-2015, including the Esker Foundation (Calgary) and Galerie de l’UQAM (Montreal). Werner’s work is in the collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal, The Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, University of Lethbridge (Alberta), Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Mendel Art Gallery and numerous private and corporate collections.