BIO
A native of northern Vermont, Jane earned a BA in Physics at Northeastern University. She studied art at Foothill College, the SMFA, BMFA Studio Art classes, and the Cambridge Art Association. A formative experience during her childhood was years of private art lessons with Meredith Luhrs, a Cooper Union graduate.
Jane’s awards include two first prizes, still life category, in the Griffin Museum’s 9th Annual Jured Exhibition. She has exhibited in several other juried shows, including the Brush Gallery’s Massachusetts Artists 2005, the Stebbins Gallery’s annual photography shows (2), the Francesca Anderson Fine Art Gallery’s shows (4), and the Belmont Gallery of Art’s group shows (5). She has mounted solo shows at the Belmont Gallery of Art, at Starbucks Coffee in Belmont Center, and at the Luhrs Studio and Fine Art Gallery in Indiana.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Jane Wentzell has produced a large collection of painterly, almost abstract, still life color photographs using only natural light. Sunshine, cut into patterns by lace, delineates and exposes the delicate forms of the New England garden flowers that she arranges with antique china and glass. Jane employs these interesting and beautiful objects in her intensive exploration of composition.
Her universal vision enlivens the tension between representation and the abstract, by adjusting the usual perspective to a closer, more oblique study of the details to be found in the architecture of botany and the designs of old vessels.
Jane has been photographing the flowers she grows in her garden since 1997, using a manual camera and Fuji professional slide film. She takes thousands of pictures every summer while her flowers are blooming. Her C-prints were exposed to photographic paper and developed in a chemical bath. They have not been digitally manipulated. They are photographs of real life.
CONTACT
jw@janewentzell.com
617-489-0412