Janet Werner’s paintings explore the power of iconic images over our imagination and memory by investing nameless figures with human subjectivity and emotion. The artist uses found images of anonymous figures in popular culture and imbues them with fictional personalities—resulting in work that operates within and against the genre of conventional portraiture. Werner’s composite portraits retain aspects of their originals while also embodying notions of transformation, innocence and loss.

BIO:

Janet Werner was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1959. The artist received an MFA from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in 1987. 

Solo exhibitions of Werner’s work have taken place at: the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal in Montréal, Québec; Parisian Laundry in Montréal, Québec; Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles, California; Galerie Julia Garnatz in Cologne, Germany; the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts in Montréal, Québec; Whatiftheworld Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa; and the Plug Institute of Contemporary Art in Winnipeg, Canada; among others.

Group exhibitions that have shown Werner’s work have taken place at: AXENEO7 in Gatineau, Québec; MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts; the Musée d’art contemporain in Montréal, Québec; and Kenderdine Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Canada; among others.

A solo exhibition of Werner’s work, Another Perfect Day, was organized by the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada and toured to five locations in Canada from 2013—2015.

Werner’s work is in the collections of: the Musées du Québec; the Musée d’art contemporain in Montréal, Quebec; The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, Canada; Owens Art Gallery in Sackville, Canada; the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, Germany; the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Canada; Winnipeg Art Gallery in Winnipeg, Canada; the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon, Canada; and numerous private and corporate collections.

Werner lives and works in Montréal, Québec.