Janis Pryor was introduced to the visual arts at the age of five. Her interest and skills were solidified when she began to formally study art during middle-school (or junior high!) Her skills were honed and knowledge expanded during her attendance at the HS of Music & Art in Manhattan and then onto Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont where she majored in painting and architecture.
Color is the subject of her visual work articulated by mediums not usually associated with abstract work; pastels and oil pastels (cras pas) that have been mostly used to depict traditional subject matter.
Her abstract work is driven by questions. What constitutes the boundaries of beauty? Does beauty have value? How far can you push the element of "dissonance" without compromising the integrity of the medium and having it become an unintentionally decorative piece? How can you manifest emotion through color without melodrama taking over? Can you transfix or stir the viewer exclusively through color? What will size do to its impact? Can color become a form of visual poetry and transcend the theories that define it? Can the medium rise above its assumed limitations and definition? When does the medium become servant to intent and when does it become the master driving outcome? Can the final creation sustain the viewer "when all else falls away"?
These questions and more evolve from a life long study of the visual arts that includes a relentless practice to figure drawing and a profound commitment to architectural design and photography.
Some of the practitioners that sustain and inspire her are Mark Rothko, Nicolas DeStael, Wolk Kahn, Hans Hoffman, Rodin, Gustav Klimt, Zaha Hadid, Richard Meier, Sarah Susanka, Kara Walker, HC Porter, Edward Weston, Monet, Edward Curtis, Monet and Yi-Fu Tuan and Christopher Davis.
Janis Pryor has recently moved to the White Mountains of NH where her work is shown at the Jackson Art Studio & Gallery.
