Janet Fish is well known for her brilliant colored paintings that posses a light. She paints still life, landscapes with figures while experimenting with a variety of media including oil, watercolor, and prints. A realist painter, influenced by de Kooning, Janet pursues the building of forms through the movement of light within the composition. Fish describes her process as a dance, involving her, the objects, and the painting. Her color, among other elements, is derived from the experiences of her life. Growing up in Bermuda in the late 1950s, she "expects color". Fish states, "There is more color out there than people are used to seeing." As a result, she seeks still life ingredients or landscapes with the color that is a part of her life, and she is able to present metaphorical color to stand in for the meaning that she assigns to the motif.

Fish's watercolors are conceived as works in themselves, not as studies. Her process actively incorporates perceptual knowledge and memory. She is very focused on capturing a given moment. She is aware of the perils of watercolor becoming a craft activity and looking like a photograph. In radical contrast to this, her own interest is focused on the quality and character of light. She composes structure and rhythm while investigating the function of color. Believing that a watercolor is a dead end if it cannot be changed, Fish keeps her work open, working wet into wet, subtracting with a toothbrush or razor blade, and by correcting with gouache.

"Juicy Squirms and Apple" is full of the kind of pictorial activity and movement for which Fish is reknowned. The "ugly old ash tray" caught Fish's attention due to its eccentric shape, offering a different "swing" to the picture. The jeweled apple's roundness loops the viewer back around into the picture to traverse the slither of juicy worms. The viewer follows the light, shape and vivid color through the picture, enjoying the dynamic movement.

- Jen Wechsler

Born 1938, Boston; BFA and MFA, Yale University School of Art and Architecture; many solo shows since 1968 have included The Print Center, Philadelphia, 2000, Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, FL, 1998-99, Aspen Art Museum, CO, 1992 and John Szoke Gallery, NY (and tour), 1998-99; included in Invitational Exhibition of Paintings & Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY, Contemporary American Realist Drawing - The Jalane and Richard Davidson Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 1999-2000, Absolute Secret: A Benefit Exhibition of Postcard Art for the New York Studio School, McKee Gallery, NY, 1998; Adolph & Clara Obrig Prize, National Academy of Design, 1995 and American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, 1994; represented by the D C Moore Gallery.

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