Janice Nowinski
Janice Nowinski (1959-) was born in Brooklyn. She studied at the New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture, and received her MFA in painting from Yale University (1987). Her work has been exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Academy Museum, and the American University Museum. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Riverside Arts Center Freeark Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; John Davis Gallery, Hudson, New York; and the Washington Studio School Gallery, Washington, D.C. Nowinski’s work is represented by Thomas Erben Gallery, where she had her debut solo exhibition in 2021. Nowinski’s work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Hudson Review, Hyperallergic, Two Coats of Paint, Huffington Post and American Artist. She is the recent recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2022) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize (2014).
Nowinski often paints from snapshots, found photographs, and art historical paintings. The paintings are not much larger than the snapshots that she is working from which makes for an intimate relationship between the photos and their transformation.
“Painting small also is connected to the subject matter. The size I’m using right now is the best size for me. It goes back to the Cézanne idea about a direct connection from myself, my mind, straight to the canvas. I am trying to keep the immediacy of my emotional experience while I’m painting. I paint very intuitively. I don’t come up with an idea. The more I have an idea, the worse the painting comes out. I see something that I want to do and then I just do it. It is almost unconscious.” – Janice Nowinski
