My work for the last five to six years has focused on the ocean with a view for encouraging ocean conservation. Those series started as a result of living in Hawaii for six months where I experienced the joy of spending a lot of time in that beautiful water and the sorrow of seeing the damage to the coral reefs, and other sea life. In the early summer of last year, my paintings took an unplanned, emotional turn to doing figurative work in a “Call My Name” series, in response to the news of the horrible murders of innocent members of the Black community.
It has been a time of reckoning, and a time for regrouping. It fueled my personal need to seek refuge from the traumas we are all suffering with the pandemic, the wild fires, the social injustice, and the nightmare of our national government. Where do we turn for peace?
I go back to the seashore as I have most of my life as a place where I can find solace and experience blessed nature. That coupled with my ongoing meditation practice and recent portrait paintings led me to integrate figurative work into a new series related to life on the water, in this case China Camp State Park. With this new work, I’m focusing on the joy inherit when people let their day-to-day cares slip aside as they gather at the seashore. I believe that there is something magical about where the land meets the sea, the melding of conscious and subconscious. It is a place where we can do a “reset” for a fresh view of life, a place we can just be at peace, a place to awaken joy.
Perhaps art is about presenting different mental maps that can help shape the subconscious, and hence, our future. Life becomes what we think. My hope is that these paintings invite viewers to be more present in the moment and in nature, and encourage a better vision for moving forward and honoring all life on the planet.
To purchase artworks, visit Janey’s website at janeyfritsche.com
