My artwork begins with drawing, thoughts and feelings become tools to hone the mark-making. The colour and decorative content is intuitive and I love the process of manipulating the colours upon the surface, immersed  in the vehicle of colour and personal associations, I add to this, new fragments blended from my imagination and memory. The magic of the unseen, embracing the fragility and strength of this life, for that reason my art has always been a personal journey. These impressions and visual expressive poems are explored and anchored in a highly personal narrative about a sense of place, my memory and emotion for each intuitively composed frame.

Jan Gardner was born and brought up in North Wales and spent much of her early years wandering the lanes and hills around her home. It was here that the light, space and colours that inhabit her work first became an influence. Drawing on these memories and experiences of special places and her later travels in Europe, Morocco and the U.S.A.; she crafts vivid and atmospheric works. 

The life affirming quality of her work is gleaned from her desire to look further, texture, mark-making and layering becomes apparent, a legacy from her time spent at Winchester School of Art. Sustained self-critique means Jan is highly articulate in describing the process and act of making, detailed technique and mark-making , and the deeper emotional dimensions of her work. Fascinated by the challenge that each of us sees colour differently, yet each engages with colour emotionally, her engagement with colour is both lens and lynchpin and this nuanced understanding of perception, emotion and association underpins the marks and choices of her process at a deeper level.

In 2007 Jan was awarded an Arts Council of Wales research grant which enabled her to explore the source of her palette and the ancient and contemporary manufacture of pure pigment in Milan, Geneva and New York. In 2012 was awarded a project grant from the Arts Council of Wales towards a new body of work for a major touring solo show commencing from Oriel Gallery, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold, Flintshire, north Wales. This major new body of work toured the U.K in 2013- 2014, including venues in Scotland, England, culminating in the tours conclusion in Oriel Ynys Mon, Llangefni, Anglesey. Jan  is currently represented by Resipole Gallery, Scotland, Galeri Betws y Coed and the Royal Cambrian Academy, Conwy.

Jan was invited to become an academician of The Royal Cambrian Academy, Conwy in 2015. In the Spring of 2018, completed a large commission for a major national company to produce a series of original paintings to be reproduced in their properties. Jan was invited to become a member of the RWSW in 2020.

Jan continues to exhibit and produce her work for the galleries she is represented by in Wales, England and Scotland.

Jan's work is held in private, corporate and public collections across the U.K and worldwide.

www.jangardner.com