Janet Towbin began her art career as a textile designer and now creates in a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, printmaking and photography. Towbin exhibits regionally, nationally and internationally.
Originally from the Midwest, Towbin has lived in Paradise Valley, Arizona, for the past 12 years. She taught courses in textile print design, collage and basic design at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, and printmaking at Carnegie Mellon University and Arizona State University.
She has had 12 solo exhibitions and her work is included in the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Butler Institute of American Art, the Heinz Endowments Collection, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Mesa Contemporary Art Museum and is featured in every room at Andaz Resort and Spa in Scottsdale.
Her current body of work consists of mirrored patterns, tessellated shapes and mandalas meticulously drawn or painted. In addition to her paintings and drawings, she has collaborated with Brent Bond at Santo Press completing over 100 print editions in the past 4 years.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT: BOXES
The Boxes series of drawings focuses on structure and precision, with an accent on both popular culture and the Arts and Crafts movement.
I began this series many years ago. I became fascinated by the incredible variety of boxes and how they were so different in spite of having essentially the same overall shape parameters.
Boxes containing tea bags, cereals, pastas, tissues, candy and light bulbs became sources of inspiration to me. Generally, boxes share a basic shape: six sides, with an opening at one or both ends. Considering the restrictions of usage and shape, it is amazing how each box, when splayed open, adopts an unexpected individuality and personality.
The deconstructed boxes are interesting in their diverse shapes and as these minimally drawn images they begin to resemble totemic figures, masks, or architectural structures. The original intention of the box as container is completely transformed.
Several Boxes are drawn with a surface pattern. For this, I have appropriated ornate fabric and wall covering designs (especially those of William Morris & Company) from the end of the nineteenth century and have used them as contrast to the package design and blatant consumerism of our own time.
Copyright © 2019 The Box - All Rights Reserved.