Today we’d like to introduce you to Janeen Talbott.
Hi Janeen, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
For as long as I can remember, I have been a writer and visual artist. I started reading at the age of 3, and my fascination with art began around that time, too. Like most children at that age, I loved to use my imagination, but instead of growing out of it as I got older, I leaned in close.
I wrote quite a bit during my pre-teen and teenage years– lots of poetry and short stories. I grew up in a strict household with a lot of pressure to excel, so writing was a haven for me. It was a figurative place where I got to do whatever and say whatever I wanted– to explore places I’d never been from the safety of my own bedroom without the threat of danger or negative repercussions. During that time, I drew frequently and had a lot of fun playing with art styles. I began painting seriously at the age of 15 in a high school art class. There, I fought and fell in love with the medium. By the end of that year, I’d gotten my first commission.
I graduated from Florida A&M University with a degree in journalism and realized soon after that I missed many of the freedoms creative writing afforded me. While abroad in the Peace Corps, it dawned on me that filmmaking was the perfect marriage of what I was most passionate about: writing and visual art. After service, I enrolled in Florida State University’s graduate film program to get a handle on the basics. While directing my first short in the program, I felt deeply connected to myself and those around me. I felt a sense of purpose and synergy that I’d never felt before. I knew then that I’d finally found that thing that I would be happy to do for the rest of my life.
Since then, I have been working to bring stories from the page to the screen, and I still draw, paint, and write. Though the journey has been difficult to navigate at times, I wouldn’t change it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Honestly, there isn’t a road. I’m charting my own path, and that’s a bit scary, not just for me, but for my loved ones as well. I think that’s the biggest struggle.
My family is full of entrepreneurs and successful working professionals, but there isn’t anyone in that number who has pursued a creative career that I can look to for guidance. That was and still is one of the biggest struggles because having the support of friends and family makes the unknown a lot less daunting. For many, being an artist is a non-linear profession. I have to dig in, keep going, and actualize my dreams, but it’s hard to show others where I’m headed when I don’t have a roadmap. It’s hard to show myself where I’m headed sometimes, too.
Ironically, in those moments when doubt creeps in, I rely on the diligence, discipline, and willpower that my family has instilled in me during my formative years to keep going.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a painter, mixed-media artist, and filmmaker. My creativity is both a calling and a catharsis, and I primarily use art as a tool to understand myself and the world around me.
Deeply influenced by my Jamaican heritage and upbringing in semi-rural South Florida, I draw inspiration from the moments, mythology, and memories of my communities stateside and abroad. As a proud daughter of the diaspora, I am emboldened by the beauty and lore bubbling out of the global South. I bring the places, patterns, and people that reflect both to the fore in my work.
My visual art predominantly features portraiture, but I am not limited to one medium. I use paint, ink, recycled materials, clay, and photography separately or in conversation, depending on what a piece requires. In 2024, I painted murals for Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. on the Greek wall at Florida A&M University. Recently, I designed and painted original artwork for Pepsi’s inaugural National Battle of the Bands in the Palm Beaches.
My film work is character-driven and rooted in my love for Black heroes real and imagined, the nuanced worlds in which they live, and a desire to see them adequately represented, cherished, and lauded in film and television. My latest documentary, Country Punk Black, is currently on its festival run. It chronicles the musical journey of Twurt Chamberlain, a genre-bending singer-songwriter from Lexington, Mississippi, to uncover how his lived experiences have influenced his evolving sound. I am also on the hunt for funding for my first feature, Peenie-Wallie, about a young girl in 1960s Jamaica who gets ostracized by her local community for wielding her unexplainable powers for good.
My approach across artistic modalities is always the same: Lead with wonder and emotion, be thoughtful or thought-provoking, and do it with robust color.
How do you define success?
Success is synergy between myself, the medium, those with whom I work, and those who interact with the work. The ability to sustain myself, provide for, and inspire others with what is bred out of that synergy is also success.
Contact Info:
- Website: janeentalbott.com
Image Credits
Janeen Talbott, Crystal Guest, Vida Carson
