JAN KERN | ARTIST

Jan Kern is a visual artist who makes collaged paintings striking for their dramatic color interplay, strong design, and rich mix of global influences. Her bold rhythmic abstractions are inspired equally by  abstract painting and by the work of anonymous artists from across the ages who constructed with color using materials as varied as paint, clay, stone, wood, feathers, fiber, and beads.

Using a process she has developed over many years, Kern brings together the call-and-response spontaneity of collage with the permanence and vibrancy of painting.

Her pieces are all carefully made of acrylic paint applied to strips of canvas that she then cuts up and glues onto strong supports.  But that is the final step.  Each piece begins months earlier with many days, weeks, or months of playful composing that starts when some visual element has caught her attention and invited her to engage.  The act of juxtaposing is what fuels her ideas.