The Maynard
Spring 2018

Spring 2021 Issue Cover Art

by Jan Conn

Although I have been a photographer since I was a young adult, it wasn’t until 2014 that I began to collaborate with Canadian artist Annemarie Buchmann-Gerber (1947-2015) to create large format mixed media paintings. Since then, I have been painting works that explore combinations and conflicts of natural and anthropomorphic worlds, objects linked to human presence and complex emotional states, and expressions of more abstract concepts.

In Two Oranges with Red Centres, I was working with opposing forces: first, a carefully executed pattern of egg-size repeating oval shapes on a pale orange field, creating an outer frame, and an interior of geometric /curvilinear shapes on yellow. This was fairly static. I introduced movement via more spontaneous, improvisational markings of varying sizes, e.g., loosely painted ovals, thick blue “boundary” lines, in a dialogue with the more structured groundwork. Painting in the midst of the news of climate fires in the west, the intensity of the colours partly reflects my distressed mood. As the composition unfolded, the palette empowered me to take risks, adding textures and layers. The oranges of the title are blood oranges; I associate them with the orange moon, waxing or waning, in the middle ground, partly obscured by blues.