Check out Janet Onofrey’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Janet Onofrey.

Janet, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
My journey begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, growing up in a suburb during the height of the steel industry. Andrew Carnegie shared his wealth by providing libraries, and museums, opportunities for knowledge. I was fortunate to be chosen to attend a free Saturday morning drawing class at the Carnegie Museum that included grades 3 through 12. Sitting in the Music Hall, we were taught, given an assignment, supplies, and allowed to roam the museum to complete the task. At the age of 8, I was observing original works by Van Gogh, Sargent, Monet, and countless more. Andy Warhol and Philip Pearlstein are just two peers that I am aware of who attended this elite class. I kiddingly remark that I grew up in a museum, but I know it was a pivotal decision in my story. I began my education at a community college- but raising two sons alone, my career focused on the commercial arts. I graduated from Point Park College with a BA as well as an AA from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. This allowed me to illustrate for my clients, design, and composition, as always, being essential.

I moved to South Florida for marriage, working in advertising agencies, and wishing I was painting in the sunshine. But the tragedy of 911 influenced my desire to develop my artistic voice to a new level. With a small scholarship, I began graduate school at Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, now twice the age of my classmates. This program included a semester in Lacoste, their campus in Provence, France and travels to Paris and Barcelona, visiting Miro’s and Dali’s museum in Figueres, Spain. Again, first-hand direct observation of world-renowned art enhances our perception of everything we encounter. My MFA in Painting gave me the opportunity to teach at local colleges and currently at the Boca Museum of Art School. It feels like a journey that has come full-circle; learning at a prestigious museum to teaching at a museum, using the artwork and objects as subjects. Teaching at FAT Village Center For The Arts School and privately has also allowed me to connect with aspiring artists of all ages, nationalities, and ambitions. I am sincerely thankful to consider many as dear friends.
In 2015, I was awarded the South Florida Cultural Consortium Visual and Media Artist Fellowship for my body of work of oil paintings that captured South Florida scenes of everyday life that mostly goes unseen. This monetary award helped pay rent but also allowed me to participate in a residency program with the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts, on Skopelos, Greece. I spent two weeks painting and drawing from life on their extraordinary island in the Aegean Sea and another week in Athens. This award and exposure to patrons of the arts have given me exhibiting opportunities, commissions, and my heartfelt gratitude.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
We are all products of our past, and my history includes learning at a young age, how to see and interpret the shapes and colors that surround us. I began my journey in Pittsburgh, Pa. amongst rolling hills and many grey days. This is a sharp contrast to the flatness and often, unrelenting sunshine of South Florida. So when I moved here in 1995, I explored this new bright, colorful environment and found interesting shapes of endless colors and designs.

Mostly, I paint from life, “en plein air” (in the open air). My direct observation blends the act of seeing with my personal history and creates a connection to a meaningful experience. It embraces all of the elements, including sounds, scale, temperature, traffic, atmosphere, light, grit, and audience. Primarily urban settings, my subject matter is scenes that are routinely ignored, a reflection of a culture and sense of place that can change at any moment. This slice of reality is set in isolation, without the presence of people, to evoke a sense of stillness that allows the character of the space to speak. The places are not fully abandoned, but a stage for countless activities and residents.

I often carry a variety of sizes of panels and canvas in my car as I search for my next inspiration. Preferring oil paints for its slow drying time allows me to continue working and blending, returning to the same location if needed when the artwork is 4’ wide. I own several portable easels, but my color palette is very limited, and early morning light gives the most dramatic angles of shadows and contrast. I do photograph the subject if details are needed, but the direct observation experience is essential to the honesty of the artwork just as each brushstroke is an expression of the artist’s hand, a mirror of the inner self.

Besides painting, I draw as often as I can, anything, anywhere, pencil or ink- travel sketchbook or large paper works, for the act of seeing is contagious and instant gratification. I would love to start an urban sketching group in Broward.

I choose my compositions as essentially abstract shapes of colors that interest me, even though those shapes will only last a few minutes. Painting outside- alleys or street corners- always attract inquisitive minds. On-lookers are more than welcome- they are my audience. Countless number of times a viewer is amazed that even though they lived or passed that scene a thousand times- they never really “saw” it. I would like people to question how they “see” their world. How a simple change of perspective can alter their sense of reality. The art can illuminate our world and raise the viewers’ consciousness, transforming the seer, never to be the same.

Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
We live in a time and culture where millions of images bombard our senses at incredible speeds relentlessly. But are we really seeing? There are things we don’t see, even when we are looking straight at them, and other things we stare at obsessively so that we are blind to everything else.

Besides the number of images that influence us, I question how our view of reality is held hostage by mass media, technology, advertising, and Hollywood. If our personal and social identity is not our unique choices- how does this affect our search for meaningful experience and connections in our everyday?

I believe the artist’s role has always been to express their voice, and a reflection of their time in history, this has not changed. The biggest difference is that every voice is on a world-wide stage, forever imprinted. The artwork has the power to influence our society, politics, and culture in many ways. It’s a tremendous responsibility.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Everyone can see most of my work on my site: www.janetonofrey.com as well as follow me on Instagram; janet_onofrey.

Facebook is another way to connect as well as asking for a private showing of my work in my studio by emailing me at onofrey@gmail.com.

I currently have artwork showing at the Gallery 21 in Wilton Manors as part of a group exhibit “From the Swamp to the Village,” which deals with artists interpretation of our local landscape.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.janetonofrey.com
• Email: onofrey@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janet_onofrey/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janet.onofrey

Image Credit:
Janet Onofrey

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