JANET LEDOUX ARTIST STATEMENT

I paint in oil directly from life, often outdoors, editing the many details into a simpler and more powerful whole.  Although the work can vary from direct perceptual painting to a more markedly abstracted approach, the idea of something observed and distilled is always there.

The subject is often the light, the geometry in boulders and trees, the language of color, movement, or people and our interaction with the world.  I use oil paints for most of my paintings. Oil allows for more editing, layering, and altering as I rework a painting. I search for clarity by simplifying the subject to communicate through the language of paint.

The editing, expanding, and changing process of painting continues in my studio after my observational beginning. This is where the idea is strengthened or abandoned, or used as a bridge to something else. Curiosity, experimentation and an attempt to remain open are the tools to find the finished work.

My palette of colors is limited, usually to less than ten colors, in order to mix color quickly in a shifting environment.  With just a few paint colors, all the relative nuances of light can be expressed as color on linen canvas. This idea of color and structure connected in order to express an idea is the thing that keeps me obsessed with painting year after year.

Many other artists have influenced me, including Fairfield Porter, Lois Dodd, Alice Neel, Piero della Francesca, and Tom Thomson with the Group of Seven.

Traveling inspires me, along with looking, walking and working in nature, and the gestures people make. I want my viewers to feel connected to my paintings by their own memories of the spirit of a place or gesture that I have found in my search for truth in what I see.