Artist Statement

My practice defies easy categorization, operating instead within formal and conceptual slippages between abstract modernist, minimalist and representative art.  The consistency across my work is the emotional response I have to function, form and patterns primarily occurring in small, overlooked, and seemingly insignificant components of the natural world.  Trees and forests hold a special interest, with my focus is mostly on the micro level – on bark and wood – and its textures, colours and the life forms that find a home there.

 The artistic process starts by close observation.  The work is usually meticulous, closely cropped, inviting viewers to draw near for a closer look and allowing a more intimate portrait to emerge.  Colour, pattern or luminosity are enhanced to let the complexity shine through. Drawings are on paper or wood using mostly ink and coloured pencils or sometimes acrylic. The use of simple, artisanal materials reflects the Arte Provera movement and my work has been inspired particularly by Giuseppe Penone.  Other influences are the minimalist traditions, the German painter Gerhard Richter, and the American artist Helen Frankenthaler. I search for that fluidity of line and sensitivity of colour that describes shapes and forms. Not disguising or hiding the meaning, I celebrate what the eye often overlooks.

Artist Biography

Janna Kumi is a 2019/20 recipient of a Visual Arts Research and Create grant awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Kumi studied physical geography at Concordia University, forestry at the University of Munich and British Columbia.  After working in resource management in British Columbia for 35 years, she returned to UBC to study fine art and received a BFA in 2015. Since then, she has had many solo and group exhibitions, including At Eye Level, Hatch Gallery, Vancouver (2018); Bark, Van Dusen Gardens, Vancouver (2018); Time and Process, Port Coquitlam (2020), Harmony Arts, West Vancouver (2015 – 2019) and with the Federation of Canadian Artists, Vancouver (2018 – 2020). She is represented by Canada’s premier online art gallery Artfully.ca

Kumi is best known for her large scale, intimate colour pencil drawings of tree bark. She lives in the Greater Vancouver Area and you can see her taking pictures of bark all over the province.

Find Janna online:

Website: https://www.jannakumi.com
Instagram: @jannakumi