Janett Levian

Share

J P Hughson (artist) neatly sums up what painting is for me. He said, “For me a painting is like a story which stimulates the imagination and draws the mind into a place filled with expectation, excitement, wonder and pleasure.”

Janett’s work is influenced by a need and desire to stimulate wonder and pleasure in others while expressing her own excitement and wonder at the world, colours, scenes and stories. She has a rich imagination and a love of colour that strongly influences the subject matter and style of her art. Spirituality has always been an essential part of her life and many of her pieces reflect this, both playfully, in the form of mythical creatures and whimsical scenes, and more meditatively in calm scenes and subject matter suggestive of a spiritual life. Aside from the more classical canvass’ she also enjoys the challenge of creating art on reused objects – saws, pot lids, bread boards and whatever lends itself to transformation.

While Janett has previously been busy in her life with raising five children, establishing a professional life in academia and teaching ballroom dancing, she returned to the Hawke’s Bay in 2015 where she took up painting in 2015. She now teaches tai chi, loves gardening and enjoys living near the coast.