Artist's statement
Full Artist's statement
"Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change." - Barbara Januszkiewicz From intense color compositions to subdued shades of reverberations, Januszkiewicz's paintings strive to visually capture the sensation of sound. Januszkiewicz trained formally under Chinese master Mun Quan, a traditional watercolorist whose influence can be seen in her wet and controlled technique. Her experiments in stretching the creative boundaries of watercolor led her to make her own paints for greater depth of color and luminosity. A few years ago she was introduced to Washington Color Painter Paul Reed and with him started experimenting with staining in acrylics.
Philosophically, Januszkiewicz values risk-taking, experimentation, and creative collaboration. What distinguishes Januskiewicz's success is her many years as a watercolorist, painting in a wet technique. It is this skill that she now brings into applying paint stains onto unprimed canvas. Januszkiewicz has been influenced directly by music in her career. She strives to capture how music sounds and feels in her paintings. "I find it intriguing that there is a vocabulary of words that apply to both music and visual art such as movement, patterns, complements, harmonies and layering," she says. "Music is my muse. I am inspired by the gritty undertones and rhythm patterns of the blues. I take a song's chord progressions and play with the idea of a mirrored chord in the colors I paint with. Blending the music and corresponding color notes, I work to create luminous paintings that reflect the emotionalism and improvisational freedom that we find in music genres like jazz and blues. I see my work as a frozen moment of the song.” - Barbara Januszkiewicz
